Each week, we scour the internet for the most significant, surprising, and outrageous art news—helping you stay informed (and sound smart). Have a suggestion? Let us know on social media (@meetmeural) with the tag #thisweekinartnews. (See all installments.)

1. “A Leonardo Made a $450 Million Splash. Now There’s No Sign of It.” by David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times

Last year we covered the record-shattering sale of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi (c. 1490–1519), noting that the work was set to be displayed at the Louvre Abu Dhabi starting September 18. Well, that date has come and gone. According to the Times, “the culture department is refusing to answer questions. Staff of the Louvre Abu Dhabi say privately that they have no knowledge of the painting’s whereabouts.” There seem to be no leads. We have a feeling we’ll be reporting on this again.

2. “Beyoncé and Jay-Z helped Louvre reach record number of visitors in 2018” by Clarisse Loughrey, The Independent

There are a few reasons that the Louvre was the most visited art museum in 2018, with 10.2 million visitors—an influx of foreign visitors, for example, or the fact their Delacroix show drew 540,000 visitors alone. But some credit needs to go to Beyoncé and Jay-Z, the married musical artists who, under their moniker The Carters, set the six-minute long video to their lead single for their album Love Is Everything at the museum. In the digital age, the positive impact of having an exhibit be Instagram-able is undeniable; the music video made much of their collection fodder for social feeds.

3. “Art’s Most Popular: here are 2018’s most visited shows and museums” by Emily Sharpe and José da Silva, The Art Newspaper

The Independent (above) actually got the figures for their article here, which is really just a browsable treasure trove of info. It’s great for providing perspective on how museums and exhibits across the world stack up against each other. Some findings might not be surprising—that the Met claimed the top two most popular exhibitions, for example—but others certainly will: out of the top ten most popular exhibits, the Shanghai Museum had five.

4. “Mercedes-Benz Featured Detroit Murals in Ads, Now Suing Artists Who Made the Artworks” by Keith Estiler, HYPEBEAST

In this installment of tales of corporate America conflicting with the arts community: Mercedes-Benz sues artists whose work was featured in their ads. This article covers the most recent kink in a long and winding plot, but the long and short is this: A few Instagram ads posted last year featured the car company’s SUVs set against murals made by Daniel Bombardier, Maxx Gramajo, James “Dabls” Lewis, and Jeff Soto. The artists were not paid or contacted, and complained of copyright infringement. The company then filed a lawsuit seeking a ruling that their ads did not infringe on the rights of the artists—seemingly before the artists could file their own lawsuit. “They filed these lawsuits secretly while we were still talking with them and waiting to hear back from them,” said Soto. This is a big case on its own, but will certainly set a precedent for similar cases, which seem to sprout up with ever increasing frequency.