Laurence des Cars appointed director of the Musée d’Orsay

Laurence des Cars appointed director of the Musée d’Orsay | After weeks of speculation, Laurence des Cars, the director of the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris, is to take over as director of the Musée d’Orsay, reports Le Monde (French-language article). Des Cars, a specialist in 19th- and early 20th-century art, was selected from a shortlist of five named candidates to replace the museum’s outgoing director Guy Cogeval. The appointment has been confirmed following a meeting held yesterday with the French President, in which the nominated director presented her future plans for the museum. Des Cars will take up her new position on 15 March.

Iron age gold discovered in Staffordshire | Two amateur metal ‘detectorists’ have unearthed three gold necklaces and a bracelet, which experts believe may be ‘the earliest Iron Age gold work ever discovered in Britain’, at approximately 2,500 years old. The four pieces, named the Leekfrith Iron Age Torcs, were found buried close together in a Staffordshire field in Leekfrith last December. According to Dr Julia Farley, the British Museum’s curator of British and European Iron Age collections, the chance discovery is a find ‘of international importance’.

Digital photography documents Sistine Chapel in microscopic detail | A five-year-long project documenting the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel has been completed. According to a report in the Times (£), photographers used 50 megapixel digital cameras to take over 250,000 shots depicting the 300 figures painted across the frescoes of the chapel ceiling. The project, which was kept carefully under wraps before its unveiling on Friday evening, was commissioned to aid future restorations of the frescoes. The photographs will be published in a new three-volume limited-edition set of 1,999 copies.

Hudson Valley centre for Italian art sets opening date | Maggazino, an arts space founded by Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu, has announced that it will open on 28 June. The centre, which will be dedicated to postwar and contemporary Italian art, will begin with its exhibition programme with a show about the dealer Margherita Stein and her connections with Arte Povera.