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. “The Invention of the ‘Salvator Mundi’ Or, How to Turn a $1,000 Art-Auction Pickup Into a $450 Million Masterpiece.” by Matthew Shaer, New York

With a bold headline and a comprehensive (to say the least) telling, this story, from New York, contains nearly everything you’d want to know about the tale of Salvator Mundi, the da Vinci work that sold for $450.3 million in 2017. As unbelievable as it is, that headline isn’t just clickbait; in 2005, the painting “appeared on the website of the New Orleans Auction Gallery, a small operation headquartered on the banks of the Mississippi River.” It eventually sold for $1,000. (In between that sale and the 2017 sale, it auctioned for $127.5 million in 2013, after it was agreed to be a da Vinci, of course.) Though it might tread over familiar ground, the piece brings to light many new nuggets that are nothing short of fascinating: “More recently, rumors have emerged of an even more complicated scenario: Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, the Daily Mail has reported, bid against each other in the Christie’s auction, both under the incorrect assumption that they were competing with Qatar, an opposing regional power, for the picture.”

2. “Stolen Van Gogh works return to public display after 17 years” by Daniel Boffey, The Guardian

17 years ago, Scheveningen Beach in Stormy Weather (1882) and Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen (1884) were stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. “Octave Durham, now 46, and his accomplice, Henk Bieslijn, climbed on to the roof of the museum using a stolen ladder before smashing a window with a sledgehammer and lifting from a wall the smallest and nearest Van Gogh canvasses they could find. A security guard spotted the men, but she was not allowed to use force to stop them.” They were recovered in 2016 (they’d since been purchased by a mafia boss) and, thanks to a thorough restoration project, are now on exhibit once again.

3. “Arts and culture add more to UK economy than agriculture, report claims” by Jack Shepherd, The Independent

It’s hard to see this as anything but good news, no matter who you are. The news speaks not only to the existence of a solid block of arts-related jobs (360,000 in 2016, to be exact), but money coming from those jobs (£2.8 billion in tax in 2016). Sir Nicholas Serota, chairman of the public body, said, “Traditionally people have tended to think of the arts as nice to have. What this report shows is that the arts are an essential part of the British economy.”

4. “Delving Into the Story of a Black Woman Waiting for a Bus in Postwar Los Angeles” by John Seed, Hyperallergic

We love unearthing the backstories behind works of art, and this article truly dives deep into the history of Elsie Palmer Payne’s Bus Stop (1949). It’s a fascinating window into a singular artist, postwar American art, and the interplay between private ownership and the public understanding of a given work: “…when a group of Elsie’s finest paintings — including Bus Stop — were assembled by Coen for a 1988 retrospective, something remarkable happened. Orange County art collector Gerald Buck, who was assembling what many Californians for many years called ‘the best collection that nobody has seen,’ bought the entire show. For this reason, Bus Stop has been largely out of public view for nearly three decades, but should be on view much more often in the near future.”