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Original headline: "London's National Gallery buys mysterious altarpiece for $20m" The artist is literally unknown, not just "not yet famous", which is how I f
by jfengel 2y ago
Original headline: "London's National Gallery buys mysterious altarpiece for $20m"
The artist is literally unknown, not just "not yet famous", which is how I first read the HN headline. It's centuries old.
- giuliomagnifico 2y agoOh yes maybe my fault, I meant unknown as really unknown, not “less famous”.
- riffraff 2y agoI also read it like GP and thought this might be a piece about some shady art dealing :) I think a common way to describe such authors is "anonymous" although that has its own shade of confusion (did they intend to be unnamed?)
- giuliomagnifico 2y agoI wrote "unknown" because anonymous could be thought of as a donation or someone still alive but anonymous. In this case, it is truly "unknown” Anyway, mods can edit the title if this causes misunderstandings!
- mellosouls 2y agoNote that articles should be submitted with the original title: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- kybernetyk 2y agoWhen I read that headline I really assumed it was about another case of nepotism - after the Zoe Law drama some time ago. Glad to hear it's not that.
- freddealmeida 2y agoSame. Thought this was just another tax scam.
- ginko 2y agoAFAIK it's not at all uncommon for artists of old paintings to be unknown. Especially for religious paintings like this. (if anything it's the default) For instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_the_Golden_Altar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_the_Golden_Altar Wikipedia even has a list listing many 'Master of X' artists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Anonymous_artists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Anonymous_artists