French artist JR will wrap the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris next year to mark 40 years since it was first done by Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

The installation, called La Caverne du Pont Neuf, will see the 761-foot-long bridge wrapped in fabric for three weeks in June to resemble a giant rock formation.

JR, who started out as a graffiti artist in the city, said he was "inspired by the artistic vision of Christo and Jeanne-Claude".

He added: "I share their idea that the mission of art is to make the public think—or rethink about the familiar."

Christo and Jeanne-Claude met in Paris and first proposed their idea of wrapping the bridge in 1975 but it took a decade to become a reality. Their other work included wrapping the Reichstag parliament building in Berlin and installing thousands of gates along the paths of New York's Central Park hung with panels of dyed fabric.

The value of the art collection built up by husband and wife Mitchell Rales and Emily Wei Rales who recently announced their divorce sparking speculation over its future and the Glenstone private museum they founded to house it near Washington D.C.

A long-lost Rubens unearthed in a Paris mansion sold for $3.42 million at auction in France yesterday.

The painting of Jesus Christ on the cross, dating from 1613, was found by auctioneer Jean-Pierre Osenat while he was arranging the sale of the house and was expected to sell for around $2.3 million.

Very little is known of its history but it is believed to have been painted for a private collector and later bought by 19th-century French painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau who passed it down through his family.

It was authenticated by German art historian Nils Buttner who said: "It's the very beginning of Baroque painting, depicting a crucified Christ, isolated, luminous and standing out vividly against a dark and threatening sky."

**London's** National Gallery has unveiled a memorial made from slate from the Welsh quarry that was the wartime home of its masterpieces.

The inscribed slate tablet, which was the idea of artist **Jeremy Deller**, goes on permanent display from tomorrow in the art museum.

With Britain facing an uncertain future in 1940, it was proposed to ship the entire collection to Canada but that idea was vetoed by Prime Minister **Winston Churchill** amid fears submarine attacks would send it to the bottom of the sea.

Instead, it was stored for four years in the Manod quarry in Snowdonia. Explosives were used to enlarge the entrance so the largest paintings could fit and several brick storehouses were built inside the quarry to protect the paintings from changes in humidity and temperature.

It was the first time the collection had been kept in such tightly regulated and monitored conditions and led to the post-war introduction of air conditioning in the gallery and the formation of a specialist conservation department.

1 - The planned expansion of the Portland Museum of Art in Maine just got bigger. The museum, run by director Mark Bessire, is buying four properties and a parking lot in the city for new office space freeing up more room for its collection. It previously announced plans to build a new wing as part of its $100 refurbishment project.

2 - The first major exhibition of work by British painter Euan Uglow in more than two decades will open next February in the MK Gallery in Milton Keynes, 50 miles north of London. More than 70 paintings and drawings will be on show alongside work that influenced him by artists from Paul Cezanne and Alberto Giacometti to his art school tutors such as Victor Pasmore.

3 - Collector Charles Saatchi revealed he turned down the offer of a seat in the UK's House of Lords in 1996. He told the Sunday Times newspaper he did not believe in official state honors.

4 - Art dealers Iwan and Manuel Wirth have opened a hotel and restaurant in the Swiss village of Sils Maria. The Chesa Marchetta is the latest site in their Artfarm project which already includes restaurants in New York, Los Angeles, Scotland and Menorca.

5 - A unique white-and-silver Leica camera owned by the late Pope Francis sold for $7.5 million at auction in Vienna, Austria, last month. That makes it one of the most expensive of the firm's cameras ever sold but the record still stands at $16.7 million which was paid for a 100-year-old prototype three years ago.