142-year-old SHIPWRECK FOUND in Lake Michigan!

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Buy Amara. This is a weekly news show where we'll look at some of the weird, strange, and just downright odd things that have happened in the art and history fields.

I'm your host and personal curator, Amara Andrew. This week, we're talking about a 142-year-old shipwreck found in Lake Michigan, golden toilet capers apprehended, and a missing Van Gogh painting returned in an IKEA bag. And I'm going to go on another rant about pronouncing Van Gogh in just like two seconds, so get ready.

Anywho, that is what is on tap today, so let's just get to it.

I still feel like I'm extremely rusty, so sorry. This is going to be maybe a shit show, we'll see. It's also going to be a little bit of a quicker episode because these stories are actually nice and short and tight.

So, yeah. This has been a week of major catch-up, major catch-up to just get back in real life. 'Cause like I mentioned in the last episode, we've just been traveling like all over the fucking globe.

And then, now, we're finally home, but it feels weird to be home because it feels like I should be doing 80 different other things. So, anyway, it's nice to be home, but we're just like in catch-up mode, and then I've shot with a couple different people, like filmed, not pew, pew, probably shouldn't do that on YouTube. Oh, god.

Anyway, but, yeah, we've just filmed with a couple different people, too, in the past week. So, I've I've been a little frazzled, so there's just a lot going on. But it's good.

Definitely would rather have this than have nothing going on. So, yeah, just trying to get back to normality, which is always difficult for me, no matter what. I always get like a little bit of a come down after traveling because I really enjoy traveling and going to different places and like doing new things.

And like, I hate being in like a rut. So, whenever we come back and it's just like downtime, I always get a little sad. So, I think I'm going through like maybe it's like withdrawal, almost.

Probably not, but it's just like a feeling of just like, well, no, like I can't wait to go travel again, which we will be in like a week. So, I guess my wishes will be granted. Anywho, I'm very excited for this next trip that we're going to be doing.

We're going to L.A. For a very special conference, and we get to see one of our friends just absolutely rock it out. He actually plans the entire thing.

So, I'm very excited. It's going to be cool. So, check out my socials for more info.

Anyway, you probably give a shit less. Oh, I started reading a new book called Gothic. I don't know, you could probably If you're watching this, you could see it on my desk.

It is a giant book. We actually saw it at the airport when I was I was trying to buy temporary tattoos 'cause I wanted to have a little hot dog tramp stamp 'cause I thought that'd be very funny, but I didn't end up doing it. Anyway, I'll save that for another day.

But we saw this giant book, and it just said Gothic on it. And I was like, "Well, I have to see what the fuck that is." I'm wearing a fucking skeleton sweater today, so. I just I love goth culture.

I just I'm obsessed with it. I've always loved it. Like, goth, emo, punk, all, anyway, blah, blah, blah.

But the book itself is about the history of gothic and what that means. It's by Roger Luckhurst, which like, perfect last name, also, by the way. I'm only maybe 20 pages into it so far 'cause, like I said, I've been a little scatterbrained.

So, I haven't gotten the time to sit down and really like get into it. But so far, it's very cool. It'll literally talk about the entire history of goth.

So, just like every type of media and stuff. It's It's just It looks like a really good book. So, if you're even remotely into the goth kind of subculture, you should 100% check it out.

That's it for personal life updates. Again, kind of boring, but that's fine. I do have a story update.

So, I cannot fucking stop talk It's not me. I'm not doing it, but the de Bressy Tondo, I have now talked about it I think in four different up like updates. This is by far the most amount of updates I've ever had on a story.

Let's just keep it to that. I think I literally talked about this last episode or maybe two episodes ago now. Oh, also, happy one-year anniversary of Buy Amara.

I totally fucking forgot. I meant to have shit like, damn it. Well, happy one-year anniversary if you've been listening to me.

We're not at 52 episodes because I did take a couple times off, which you are well aware if you're listening. So, happy one-year anniversary, by the way. Yay!

Those were supposed to be party horns. Anyway, so yes, happy anniversary, me amor. Okay, back to the de Bressy Tondo.

So, now I can say in the entirety of the history of Buy Amara, this is by far the most updated story I have. So, I guess just to give you some backstory, what the fuck am I even talking about? This is like a mystery painting.

So, I mean, not the content of it, you can clearly tell what it is. So, this is of the Madonna and Christ child religious painting. It's not really known what year this was created, so it's been estimated between the Victorian age and the Renaissance.

And then, also Renaissance. Got a little throaty there. I just spit on my laptop, that was gross.

Anyway, so, sometime between the Victorian age and Ren- or, I guess, Renaissance and Victorian age, we'll flip flop those so it's in order. And then, it's not known who the actual author of is of Jesus. It's not known who the author is, either.

So, it's just one big mystery painting. So, a researcher or, like, a group of researchers, they started using AI to analyze the artwork in question, and then also to analyze a couple other paintings. So, one of the primary ones was Sistine Madonna by Raphael.

This group really was focusing on that and looking at the features of the Madonna and of the Christ child because it was kind of such a like similar composition. Using this research, they had a very close match to the Sistine Madonna. The female figure was 97% similar and the baby was 9- 86% similar to the Sistine Madonna painting.

So, then it was just like, "Okay, well, by proxy, this is probably by Raphael or by somebody within his studio." So, it had a similar kind of vibe. So, here is the update. Now, another scientist, Dr.

Carina Popovici, has a totally different theory and artist in mind. She is with Art Recognition, I believe, is the name of the company. And she has been running her own tests using AI, also, and she has now decided that there's an 85% probability that this work was not created by Raphael.

She didn't actually say, or it wasn't actually reported in any of the articles that I read, who she thinks it is. So, she's probably in the midst of publishing her work, but if she just wanted it to be known like, "Hey, no." What's interesting, too, is that with Art Recognition, that company has actually analyzed more than 500 works to help with this problem of attribution, so they do have a good ooze under their belt.

They do have a good array of different things that they've done, I guess. So, this is now just a huge, big battle within the art field. I mean, you're probably like, "Who gives a fuck?" Which I 100% agree.

Like, that is totally valid. But it is just an interesting thing in the art field because now you're having this technology kind of interfere in the world. And let's just say that art historians are not the most technologically savvy or welcoming, I will say.

It's very like old school, no. And like modern art historians are trying to kind of break that down a little bit. I mean, I am an art historian.

But it's just it's a different vibe is all. So, many people within the field, mostly older people, not ageist, but they're they're not really with it and they're not very into it. There's a lot of apprehension.

They're even calling it very dangerous, which I'm curious what the actual like danger is because I think we have different levels of danger personally. So, anyway, I will have more updates for you, I'm sure. So, this fucking de Bressy Tondo will not leave me the hell alone.

But I'm I'm invested in it now, too, so I hope you are, too. So, anyway, I will have more updates for you, so just stay tuned. But with that, I think let's just get into the show.

Most people don't know Oh, god. Sorry. Chopped that off real quick.

I live in Chicago, and I mean, most people probably know that by now. I live in Chicago, and most people don't know this, but Lake Michigan actually was a very busy port at like in the 19th, 20th, early 20th century. The whole plan, I think it was Daniel Burnham, 1909, his plan of the city was essentially to make Lake Michigan like a really awesome shipping transport and like passanger passenger transport.

So, it was a lot quicker to go across the lake and then get west versus or east or west or whatever, versus having to cross terrain. So, anyway, that was kind of the plan like 1920s essentially. So, that's what Navy Pier was originally built for, was to help with this cargo passenger transport.

You can look it up. Daniel Burnham, 1909 plan. It's really interesting.

So, anyway, because of this, it was actually used by shipping peoples and passenger transport, but because of that, there were a lot of shipwrecks that happened as well, just because that's just what happens for a variety of reasons. So, there are a lot of shipwrecks at the bottom of the lake and a lot of bodies allegedly.

Anyway, we're not going to go down that road. After a two-year search, a 142-year-old shipwreck has been found at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Maritime historians Brendon Baillod and Bob Yake, or Jake, sorry for mispronunciation.

It's J-A-E-C-K, so Yake or Jake, I'll just say Jake, whatever. These two maritime historians say that they found the perfectly intact Trinidad off the coast of Wisconsin. The Trinidad was 140-foot-long schooner, and it sank in 1881.

The vessel itself was originally constructed in 1867, so about 20 years before it sank, and it was constructed by shipbuilder William Keefe. The Trinidad was known as a canaller, since it was designed to transport coal, iron, and wheat. So, how the hell did these two maritime historians find this wreckage?

First, they started off using a lot of different research and stuff like that. So, like they went to the archives, they were able to find newspaper clippings, they found historical registration records and 19th-century nautical maps. They then connected a custom built underwater tow to the bottom of their boat hull.

This then emitted a low-frequency sonar scan that then created a 3D image of the lake floor. When they looked at the scan, they noticed that there was like a little smudge off to the side, and then they were like, "Holy shit. I think that's the Trinidad." Especially, like even more significant, because the captain of the Trinidad, Captain Higgins, reported that this was the exact spot where the vessel went missing 142 years earlier.

So, it was like literally almost exactly where it was supposed to be, which is really neat. So, after they figured this out, and they had their scans and everything, they contacted the Wisconsin Historical Society's Maritime Preservation and Archaeology Program to report their findings. So, they, the Wisconsin Historical Society, they then conducted additional surveys of the site.

They used a little remote-controlled vehicle to like survey the wreckage and everything, and they were able to confirm that this was indeed the Trinidad. I think they actually measured the wreckage's hull to determine that it had the same exact measurements as the Trinidad. So, that's it.

Like, this is it. They were also able to photograph the site, and then they also found that the vessel's deck house was still intact, and then a lot of the crew's possessions were still also like intact at the bottom of the lake floor, which is always a little like creepy, like and then there were also like dishes, anchors, and bells.

Interestingly enough, too, this isn't the first wreckage that Baillod, who's one of the maritime historians who initially found this wreckage, or like uncovered it. He has also found additional wreckage in Lake Michigan. In 2010, he found the 300-foot-long L.R.

Doty off the coast of Milwaukee. That wreckage itself was a lot larger than the Trinidad, but he actually stated that it was far less well-preserved. Like, this sounds like it was very, very, very well preserved, which if you are curious, and to wrap up this story, I'm going to include a link in the description or in the show notes so you can go find it or not find it yourself, but you can click it and look at it.

There's an entire 3D rendering of the Trinidad, so you can explore and see all these various different things. It's a really cool thing. So, you can go do that if you feel like it.

So, on to our next story.

Next time you buy something gold, you might be buying part of a missing stolen toilet. There's been a case This is a really weird case, but again, I'm going to be talking about Maurizio Cattelan, which I cannot keep his name out of my fucking mouth, can I? He's just He's doing things.

He's part of all the stories, so which, also, this actually might be part of a story, so. Anyway, let's just Let's give you a little bit of backstory to what the fuck I'm even talking about. So, today we're talking about Maurizio Cattelan's artwork called America.

It was made in 2016, which is very app. I'm not going to get into that, though. This is a fully functioning 18 karat gold toilet, solid gold, actual gold.

I believe it was originally installed at the Guggenheim, but then, in September 2019, it was installed at the Blenheim Palace in the UK, which is where things get bad. And I genuinely remember hearing about this toilet in 2016 when it was first installed because there were like what? 100,000 people or something that waited in line to use it, which I was just like, "This is absurd.

Like, this is where we're at in society." I guess, also, I'm reporting on it, so still dumb. But there was even I think a security guard outside the bathroom to make sure that like no tomfoolery happened or whatever. I don't know.

So, the toilet itself weighs 103 kilograms or 227 pounds, and it's valued between $4 and $6 million. I think $4 million when it was first stolen and then now about $6 million. Shortly after the toilet was installed at the Blenheim Palace, so on September 14th, oh, happy anniversary, by the way.

So many anniversaries. On September 14th, a group of seven people broke into the Blenheim just before 5:00 a.m. And ripped the toilet out of the ground.

Now, I did mention before that this was a fully functioning toilet. So, it's connected to water. When you rip it out of the ground, water goes everywhere.

So, that actually flooded the entire area around it. There was extensive water damage, quote unquote, and it also damaged the wood-paneled lavatory next to the room where Winston Churchill was born. So, oh, no.

This toilet was meant to be part of a larger exhibition of Cattelan's work, but again, it went missing very shortly after it was actually installed. At the time of the robbery, only one person was arrested. But then, throughout the years, six more people have been arrested, so a group of seven people.

So, this is where we're getting to where the story is today. I guess this is kind of an update even though I didn't talk about it before, but whatever. Now, it appears that the Crown Prosecution Jesus.

Now, it appears that the Crown Prosecution Service will now decide if they'll charge the seven suspects that have been arrested. So, I guess that is kind of like the main update of it is just these people are now possibly going to be charged, but I don't know, it's still a little murky. Also, I just thought it was interesting, too, what happened to the toilet?

Like, where is it? If you're arresting these people, and they supposedly are connected to it, where's the toilet? A lot of art detectives in various different articles and interviews and stuff like that, are they believe that the toilet is gone for good.

They think that it was chopped up, melted down, and turned into jewelry. So, literally, you could be wearing jewelry made from a toilet that almost 100,000 people used, made by Maurizio Cattelan. So, Oh, god, what if you even had a gold tooth?.

And it was like toilet tooth. Feel like I want that to be my stage name. Anyway, so that was just another very brief story and like update sort of thing.

So, now let's just get into our third and final story.

A stolen Van Gogh painting has been returned in an IKEA bag. And again, if you have listened to this show before, you will know that I struggle at saying Van Gogh, 'cause it just feels so fucking gross, and it just ruins my flow of saying things. So, I'm going to say Van Gogh right now, but if you hate it, okay, don't listen to me.

A Van Gogh painting Van Gogh painting has been I'm going to do my best, I'm trying, I'm really trying, just bear with me. A Van Gogh painting was returned in an IKEA bag. And if you don't know what an IKEA bag is, it is literally it's like fucking 4 feet long, 8 feet it's like huge.

Like you could fit well, I was going to say you could fit a body in there, but I don't really want to go there. You can fit so much in it. It's at IKEA, you can buy it for like $1 or something.

I don't know, I've never bought one, 'cause I think they're beyond hideous. But it's just this huge-ass bag that you could just fit your entire life in. Like you can fit all your IKEA stuff in, you could fit if you're moving, I know a lot of people move with them, and you can apparently fit a priceless work of art in there.

So, in 2020, The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring was stolen from the Singer Laren Museum. So, The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring is the name of the piece. On March 30th, 2020, the museum was closed because of the pandemic.

At around 3:15 a.m., thieves broke the main glass door with a sledgehammer, and then they went in, stole the painting, and they got out of there. What's even more awkward though, is that the painting was on loan from the Groninger Museum, so that's like, oh, god, I hate to tell you this, but the painting that you loaned us has been stolen.

That would be my worst fear as a curate- well, I guess as a curator, 'cause it's a very specific group of worries that you have, that would be absolutely terrible. The painting itself was created in 1884 by Van Gogh. It is very wide.

It's like a really oddly, like non-traditional proportioned painting, very long, a still kind of narrow. So, it's just like a long slat. I think it's actually wood with paper over it, so the paper itself is painted, I believe, is how it's kind of figured.

This is a landscape scene, which is possibly the garden of the parsonage where Vincent was staying with his parents. So, his dad was a pastor, so the parsonage is like where people who are part of the clergy stay and live. There's a figure in the center of the painting, I think it's a female figure, and then they're walking up a pathway, and then there's like a church in the background.

So, it's just like, it's a really pretty sort of scene. It's a little kind of downer with all the colors. I'm actually looking at it on my laptop right now.

Yeah, just kind of muddy, greenish-brown kind of. Like I said, this piece was created during the very brief period where Van Gogh was living with his parents in the Dutch city of Nuenen. And this is also the only Van Gogh painting in the Gron- Groninger Museum's collection, so that's even more devastating.

They loan it out, it gets stolen, and then, what the hell? But it does end positively so far. Art detective Arthur Brand recently negotiated the return of this painting.

He actually has an Instagram account where he posted a little video of himself, I'll talk about that in a second, but he has an Instagram in case you're curious. This guy, Arthur Brand, he met with a contact in the Oosterpark, a square in central Amsterdam, where the painting was handed over in his big-ass IKEA bag. It was later revealed that the people who were holding the painting captive had hoped to use it as barter for the release of a prisoner.

Like I said, he also inc- he basically like recounts the story and he's holding the painting in his hands. He's like almost touching it, though, where I can't help but be like, " your fingers. Don't touch it." But it was fine, like he is well versed in all this.

And it was just literally, god knows where, so I guess that's fine. So, in a press statement by the Groninger Museum, the painting is reportedly still in good condition, even though it's been gone for 3 years. But it does have some signs of like aging or damage to it is kind of how it read in their press statement.

So, it'll be, quote, "scientifically investigated." They also state that they don't know when exactly the piece will be back on display, because obviously they have to do like a full comprehensive view and analysis of it. Could be weeks, could be months. My guess would be months, maybe even closer to a year, just because I know how long painting analysis can take, but I digress.

It'll just It'll be a little bit, so just FYI if you want to go see it. Also, what's interesting, too, at the end of their little press statement, they said that the insurance has paid out the amount of the value of the work. And mind you, I have no idea how art insurance works.

I've never had to deal with that. I literally have no idea, but I thought this was very interesting. So, the insurance has paid out the amount of the value of the artwork and is now the formal owner of the painting.

Quote, "As usual, the Groninger Museum has the right to the first purchase and will of course use this right in order to show the work to the public again in its right place," end quote. I literally had no idea that was how art insurance worked, but I guess it is, so fun fact, another yet another thing to learn, I guess, on this podcast.

Oh, god. Sorry, that was very loud. I was trying to do it subtly, and I can't multitask today, apparently.

But anyway, yeah, so that is where it's at. So, thankfully, the painting is safe and sound, at home. It'll be tested, put on display at some point, and then hopefully the museum can buy it back.

But I don't know, we'll see what happens. Or I guess, yeah, you just give back the insurance money. Whatever, they'll fucking figure it out, they're professionals.

So, that will do it for this lightning round episode of Buy Amara. We will be back on a weekly schedule, so don't you worry your little heart out. I know you were just like, "No, don't!" so, yes, we are back.

Nothing else to say. Okay, so thank you so much for watching and/or listening. If you like this episode, please be sure to like it and subscribe, if you enjoyed it.

If you didn't, then I'm so sorry. Have fun. And I'm Amara Andrew, never stop creating.