ISIS tried to sell me a Mosaic looted from a Syrian Museum.

In January 2016 I received through Facebook Messenger a message from Turkey. The author was offering to sell me a mosaic - supposedly excavated from the area of Hatay Antakya (Ancient Antioch) - which had been discarded by the archaeologists. The offer came with pictures. 

Screenshot messenger offer

When I saw how beautiful the mosaic was I could not believe anybody with common sense could have discarded it ! 

Mosaic offered to me through Messenger

I quickly suspected this piece had been stolen. 

I tried to engage the man trying to sell this piece.
He answered to me in Italian and suggested I get in touch with him though a WhatsApp telephone number.

Messenger Communication

In the meantime a search for "Roman Mosaic of Syria" brought up the description of the actual mosaic in the book "Mosaics of the Greek and Roman World" by Katherine M.D.Dunbabin.

Thetys from Shahba Museum

To Balty’s later group (of mosaics) from Shahba belongs an astonishing bust of the Sea-Goddess Tethys... Fish entangled in her hair, a sea dragon coiled around her neck, and she holds a steering oar. The figure of the Sea Goddess occurs frequently on mosaics of the region of Antioch, but never with the power shown here: almost to large for the frame, the figure dominates the small room where it is set. The characteristics of the «Constantinian renascence» are apparent in the broad smooth surfaces and the careful delineation, for instance of the wide opened eyes; but the combination of the massive force of the face and the restlessness of the dark hair makes this work of exceptional quality. Around it, a wide border shows Erotes in boats and fishing, on a sea marked by broad bands of colour.

From there I was able to find professional pictures of the mosaic and confirmed the piece had actually been looted from the museum.

Thetys mosaic stolen from the Shahba Museum in Syria

Detail of the stolen Thetys mosaic.

CBS News' article Following the trail of Syria's looted history describes how artifacts looted by ISIS or under the authority of ISIS regularly end up on the antiquities markets in London, Paris or even New York.

I went to the FBI website to report this matter and have not heard anything about it.

I am a French mosaicist living in Headland, Alabama, USA. My Art is about inspiring people. You can see some of my work  at www.mosaicblues.com 

You can contact me at (334) 798 1639 

or by email at  

frederic.lecut@mosaicblues.com

You can also subscribe to my

MosaicBlues Newsletter

 

The Troy Benches - Les Bancs de Troy.

The Wiregrass Mosaic Project consists of covering several sets of concrete table and benches located on the Dothan Campus with individual mosaics created bya a great number of individuals. 

Over 500 people each created a small mosaic on a piece of fiberglass mesh.

Now I am setting these mosaics on top of the benches.

Later on this summer  I will fill the space between tiles with a coloured grout.

Hopefully we will have a grand magnificent opening in the early fall !
 



 
This project is being realized in partnersip with the Troy University Library and the Wiregrass Museum of Art

Le Projet de Mosaïques du Wiregrass consiste a recouvrir plusieurs ensembles de tables et bancs en béton avec de petites mosaïques individuelles. .

Plus de 500 personnes ont chacune réalisé une petite mosaïques sur un morceau de toile de verre. 

Sur cette vidéo j'installe les mosaiques sur les bancs. 

 
Je suis désolé, la première partie de la vidéo est en Anglais, j'ai ajoute des sous-titres. 

Plus tard cet été je remplirais les joints avec un mortier de remplissage. J’espère avoir une inauguration au début de l'automne. 

Ce projet est réalise en partenariat avec la bibliothèque de la Troy University a Dothan, Alabama, et le Wiregrass Museum of Art. 

I am a French mosaic artist based in Alabama. My Art is about Inspiring people, I am presently working on these huge portraits of the eyes of Yezidi Refugees. If you are interested by my work, please contact me by phone at (334) 798 1639 or by email at frederic.lecut@mosaicblues.com

You can also subscribe to my NEWSLETTER

Je suis un Artiste Mosaïste installe en Alabama. Mon Art est a propos de l'Inspiration. Présentement, je travaille a ces grands portraits des Yeux de réfugiés Yézidis. 

Si mon travail vous intéresse vous pouvez me contacter par téléphone au 334 798 1639 (aux Etats Unis), ou par email a frederic.lecut@mosaicblues.com

 

Vous pouvez aussi souscrire a ma Lettre d'Information

Flipping the Mystery Mosaic

As Resident Artist of the Wiregrass Museum of Art, I installed the Mystery Mosaic last April. 

This mosaic, at 50 x 50" (125 x 125 cm) is the biggest baddest free standing piece I have designed to this date.  

The coolissime aspect of this project is that this Mosaic would be built by the Visitors to the Museum ! They were the very ones who would actually be laying the 4096 little tiles on the model I had designed without telling anyone what the final mosaic would be ! 

Hence the dramatic "Mystery Mosaic" name !

We had planned it would take 2 month to lay the 4,400 tiles of the mosaic. It took 10 days and a group of very dedicated High School students !

The Mosaic in designed in Opus Pixellatum was realized upside down. 

On July 21st, I flipped the piece diuring the Art after Hours event at the Museum and the public, including some who had participated in the building, were able to see it for the first time. 



Flipping the Mystery Mosaic from Frederic Lecut on Vimeo.

 

I am a French Mosaic artist based in Alabama. My Art is about Inspiring people, I am presently working on huge portraits of the eyes of Yezidi Refugees and on an other Mosaic Community Project involving several hundreds participants in partnership with Troy University in Dothan and the Wiregrass Museum of Art.

If you would like to discuss how to use mosaics to develop communities or are interested by other aspects of my work, please contact me by phone at (334) 798 1639 or by email at frederic.lecut@mosaicblues.com

You can also subscribe to my NEWSLETTER

The WMA Mystery Mosaic

With the precious help of my good friend Greg Henderson, I designed last fall a new way to design and build mosaics. I named it Opus Pixellatum in reference to the digitalization of the design.

I will develop the concept in a next post. Asian Face is a good illustration of an Opus Pixellatum mosaic

My whole Yezidi Eyes collection is realized in Opus Pixellatum. 

Now, beginning this next Thursday, April 21st, at the Wiregrass Museum of Art, YOU - the public, will have the opportunity to build an Opus Pixellatum mosaic - the Mystery Mosaic - all by yourself ! 

I designed this Mystery Mosaic after a famous portrait. Measuring 4' x 4', this is the biggest mosaic I ever designed. I even had to build a special platform to work on it ! 

The principle is simple : it is basically Mosaic by Number ! Beside the colourful borders I already laid, the mosaic is composed of several thousand 3/4" x 3/4" glass tiles. There are seven different colours numbered from 1 (Pitch Black) to 7 (China White). These tiles are to be glued on the model, following the numbers printed on it. 

 

The mosaic is built reverse method : the tiles are laid upside down, on a mirror image of the actual finished mosaic. Once all the tiles are laid, a supporting frame is glued on top of the mosaic, then flipped, and one can see the mosaic for the first time ! 

Platform and Model have been installed in the downstairs hall of the Wiregrass Museum of Art.

Beginning on Thursday, April 21, and the duration of the "Made in Alabama" show, visitors to the Museum will have the opportunity to carefully and precisely glue the tiles on the model.

 

This being a Mystery Mosaic, I told no one (not even my daughter, ho was not pleased about it !) whose portrait the mosaic is and you are all encouraged to figure it out. 

Regular updates of the progression will be posted on a special WMA Mystery Mosaic Facebook Page.

Join us this coming Thursday at the Art after Hours event, and glue some tiles ! 

I am a modern mosaic artist with a deep admiration for ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine Arts. You can see some of my own mosaics on my site mosaicblues.

 

If you are interested by this project or by my work in general  or if you would simply like to drop me a line, please 

contact me by email at frederic.lecut@gmail.com   

or by phone at (334) 798 1639. 

 

 
You can also

SUBSCRIBE to my

NEWSLETTER

Note : tiles used for the Mystery Mosaic are provided by Mosaicartsupply in Atlanta, GA.

Community Mosaic Workshop

Our goal was to get a number of kids together to realize a mosaic at the Wiregrass Museum of Art in Dothan, Alabama.

The design is a traditional decorative pattern used in many Roman mosaics, usually as a border for more figurative parts. It is generally called a "guilloche". You can see below an example of Guilloche around a hunting scene on a Roman Mosaic.

 

Roman mosaic : Hunting Scene with Guilloche Border.

The artwork is  60 x 18" (1.5 x 0.5 m) in size and contains about 1,500 ceramic tile pieces (tesserae). All the preparation was done beforehand so that children could take part in the workshop by sticking the pieces down to the board (the direct method).

I first designed the pattern on a piece of backing board.

Only basic drawing tools are needed : Pencil, Permanent Marker, Eraser, Compass, Ruler.

Once the drawing complete, I cut the backing board to the final dimensioin of the mosaic and mounted it on a wooden frame to increase its rigidity. 

Here you can see the 5 colors of tiles used on this project.

I had glued a few tiles onto the board so people would know which color tile was going where. (Some still did not get it though...)

I had precut all tiles to fit the dimensions of the drawing.

I brought the board, tiles and a few tools from my workshop to the Museum. We had planned to work outside. However heavy rain was threatening and we moved the workshop inside.

The tiles were glued to the board using a regular white tile glue. The setting time is around 1 hour.

I had to adjust the cut of some tesserae. I had brought a diamond blade saw which was really to noisy inside the room. So that I finally only used the nippers. 

We had some very focussed participants...

And Sticky Fingers...

Not only did the kids enjoy it !

But their parents also got their fingers dirty !
Et voila !

It took a little less than 3 hours to complete the work. Several families participated, children and parents had a great time. 

I took the piece back to my workshop to grout it. I waited several days to clean up the glue. That was  mistake, it had seriously hardened and it took lots of time and energy to remove it. 

Make sure the glue is removed during the actual laying of the tesserae. It is very easy to wipe it out with a wet sponge or rag before it dries up, after that, it sticks very strongly to everything !

The Mosaic in display at the Wiregrass Museum of Art

If you are interested in my work, would like to acquire an existing piece or commission a mosaic, or if you would simply like to learn more and about mosaic, please contact me by email at frederic.lecut@gmail.com , or by phone at (334) 798 1639.

You can also 

SUBSCRIBE to my

NEWSLETTER

The Saxophone Players awarded

The Saxophone Players won a Merit Award at the 12th Annual Regional Juried Art Exhibition of the Dale County Council of Arts and Humanities, at the Ann Rudd Museum of Arts in Ozark, AL, on Saturday, August 18.

The Sax Players Mosaic is  18 x 18 inches ( 46 x 46 cm). It is made of ceramics, granite, marbles and gilded mirror.

 The Show is open to the public until September 28, 2012

Also displayed at the show were the Christ Icon 

and the Tree of Life 

Arles Archaeological Museum

The modern Musée de l'Arles Antique  is located about 20 minutes walking away from downtown Arles . The museum was built on the site of the enormous Roman circus where horse races and bullfights were organized (The Gladiators were fighting in the Amphitheater).It presents models of ancient monuments, objects from daily life from the prehistoric period to the 6th century AD, with a great emphasis on the Roman Era.

Among the displays are one of the world's most famous collections of 4th-century Roman Christian sarcophagi as well as sculptures, mosaics, jewelry and inscriptions.

 

Medusa

Medusa was celebrated for her personal charms and the beauty of her locks. Neptune fell in love with her, and obtained her favors in the temple of Minerva. This violation of the sanctity of the temple really pissed Minerva, and she changed the beautiful locks of Medusa, which had inspired Neptune’s love to serpents... Don't mess with Minerva.

I visited the Museum last November to see the expo about the archaeological underwater investigation of the Right Bank of the Rhone River, which produced the most beautiful torso of Julius Casear ever excavated.

Among the Mosaics displayed there were beautiful pieces : 

Zeus and Europa

Europa was the beautiful daughter of the Phoenician king of Tyre, Agenor. Zeus, the King of the gods according to Greek mythology, fell in love with her. (He had a tendency to do that...)

Overwhelmed by love for Europa, Zeus transformed himself into the form of a magnificent white bull and appeared in the sea shore where Europa was playing with her maidens. The great bull walked gently over to where Europa stood and knelt at her feet. The appearance and movements of the bull were so gentle that Europa spread flowers about his neck and dared to climb upon his back overcoming her natural fear of the great animal.

But suddenly, the bull rushed over the sea abducting Europa. Only then the bull revealed its true identity and took Europa to the Mediterranean island of Crete. There, Zeus cast off the shape of the white bull, and back into his human form, made love to Europa beneath a cypress tree. Europa became the first queen of Crete and had by Zeus three sons: King Minos of Crete, King Rhadamanthus of the Cyclades Islands, and, according to some legends, Prince Sarpedon of Lycia. She later married the king of Crete, who adopted her sons.

Orpheus Mosaic

The Greeks of the Classical age venerated Orpheus as chief among poets and musicians, and the perfecter of the lyre invented by Hermes. Poets pretended that, with his music and singing, he could charm birds, fish and wild beasts, coax the trees and rocks into dance, and even divert the course of rivers. He was one of the handful of Greek Heroes to visit the Underworld and return.