A moment of almost-total silence contemplating Velazquez's "Las Meninas" is the rare opportunity offered by Madrid's Prado museum as it reopens its doors to a handful of visitors Saturday after a three-month closure. 

In El-Arish, the provincial capital of Egypt's North Sinai, a group of women sew colorful Bedouin designs on masks to combat coronavirus, as an insurgency simmers in their restive region.

An art gallery in Paris has sought inspiration in ancient China to help it enforce social distancing, by providing hats with winged extensions for visitors.

The Japanese parliament enacted Friday a revised anti-online piracy law to tighten copyright control, banning illicit downloading of manga, magazines and academic texts, in addition to music and videos that were already covered by the existing legislation.

Several dozen artists spray-painted murals and slogans on boarded-up businesses in Oakland, California, this week in support of Black Lives Matter and George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was killed by a white policeman.

The renowned Vienna State Opera will reopen its doors from Monday -- with 100 guests per show in line with anti-coronavirus government guidelines, the opera house announced Wednesday.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum was forced to launch an appeal for funding on Wednesday after two months under a coronavirus lockdown that saw revenue from visitors dry up.

Even after his death, artist Christo's dream project of wrapping up Paris' Arc de Triomphe in silvery-blue recyclable fabric will go ahead next year in line with his wishes, organizers said on Tuesday.

Loneliness and isolation are constant for those suffering from mental disabilities, and the strict lockdown measures only impound upon this situation.

Austrian officials unveiled Tuesday plans to "neutralize" Adolf Hitler's birth house by turning it into a police station, with the building receiving some cosmetic changes in the process.

Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum was Spain's first large museum to reopen its doors as the country further loosened its lockdown on Monday, with 70 percent of the country enjoying beaches and restaurants.

Deserted by tourists, a hotel in Vienna gave itself a temporary one-night-only makeover, turning itself into an outdoor concert hall. 

The ancient Israelites may have used cannabis to get high as part of their religious ritual, according to Israeli researchers who found residue of the drug at a nearly 3,000-year-old shrine.

If you've ever dreamed of being in the Sistine Chapel without feeling like you are craning your neck in a packed open-top tourist bus, now is your chance.

New York's Metropolitan Opera will keep its curtains closed until a New Year's Eve opening gala, as it announced a season shortened by the coronavirus epidemic.

The artist known as Christo, who made his name transforming landmarks such as Germany's Reichstag by covering them with reams of cloth, died on Sunday aged 84.

Already under threat, Venice's traditional gondola shipyards now lie silent apart from the gentle sound of canal water lapping at their doorsteps.

While the ninth Bucharest Biennial is migrating online, organizers have recently announced that an artificial intelligence system will curate the 2022 edition of the art fair.

Archaeologists have discovered an exquisitely preserved Roman mosaic under a vineyard in northern Italy after a century of searching.

Renaud Capuçon, a French concert violinist accustomed to playing to rooms of 2,000 people and more, performed on Thursday evening to an empty auditorium, but he said the experience was none the worse for it.

May is Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month, but celebrations have looked a bit different this year. 

Emmanuel Kasarherou made history as the first indigenous person ever to head a major French national museum when he is named director of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum in Paris.

Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum will display a famous 16th-century painting donated to commemorate victims of the coronavirus when it re-opens next week, almost three months after closing its doors.

The Quebec government on Tuesday offered a conditional loan of US$200 million to Cirque du Soleil, the world's most famous circus troupe, which is struggling due to the coronavirus pandemic.

London's Tate Museum on Tuesday cancelled this year's Turner Prize because of the coronavirus and said it will award £10,000 grants to 10 deserving British artists instead.

Homesick Peruvians around the world in coronavirus lockdowns have been logging online in rising numbers to learn Quechua, the Andean language spoken by the Inca people.

A skeleton reaches up from the ground to clutch at a fantastical winged creature. A hunched figure wearing a face mask drags behind it an entangled mass of stricken faces and lanky limbs. A butterfly flutters out of the mouth of a body laid to rest.

A travel bag belonging to the ill-fated French queen Marie-Antoinette sold for more than five times its estimate in an auction of royal memorabilia near her one-time home at the Palace of Versailles.

Greece on Saturday urged Britain to return the Parthenon Marbles -- often known as the Elgin Marbles -- as one of the world's greatest ancient sites the Acropolis re-opens after the coronavirus shutdown.

Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte announced Sunday he intends to try to buy back the world's most famous circus troupe, which is struggling due to the coronavirus pandemic.