Thomas Hoving, the former Met director who brought us King Tut and the Euphronios krater, has died. He was 78. Hoving loved an adventure. And he made the mummies dance.
NYT: Hoving, Who Shook Up the Met, Dies at 78

Curator Oscar White Muscarella, the longtime in-house critic of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, reviews a new book on the Met as a starting point to dredge up a few decades of alleged misdeeds and “clandestine acts.”
Muscarella: The Met/Rogues’ Gallery

The New York Times’ Michael Kimmelman has published a terrific feature on “The Lost Chalice” and the road trip we took the other day to the overgrown Etruscan countryside. First we tromped around the long-sought site of the clandestine dig that four decades ago uncovered some of the world’s finest ancient art. Then I introduced him to a key character from “The Lost Chalice,” the last known surviving member of the tomb-robbing team that unearthed the haul. And on the way back into Rome we stopped to see the biggest prize from the illicit excavation—the Euphronios krater— itself in a new context at the Villa Giulia museum, far from its former home in New York’s Met.
Stolen Beauty: A Greek Urn’s Underworld

Michael Gross’ new book on the Met, “Rogues’ Gallery,” touches on the Euphronios episode and some of the characters behind it. It’s reviewed in The New York Times this Sunday.
Exhibitionists

Thomas Hoving, the former Met director, has been publishing his memoirs online. A recent chapter takes on fakes, fraud and repatriation from some big museums.

Artful Tom: The Getty Wars