Page from the 1631 “Sinners’ Bible” stating “Thou shalt commit adultery” (courtesy Bonhams)
Sum of the Arts is a periodic tabulation of numbers floating around the art world and beyond.
- Number of surviving copies of the misprinted 1631 “Sinners’ Bible” that demanded “Thou shalt commit adultery” = 10
- Number of sections of the giant sequoia Mark Twain Tree felled in 1891 given to museums = 2 (one to the American Museum of Natural History, one to the Natural History Museum in London, which is going off view until March of 2016 for renovations)
- Percentage of museum attendees who reported spending less than an hour in the Louvre during their visit = 6.5
- Weight in tons of a red granite sphinx at Penn Museum, the largest ancient sphinx on view in the Western Hemisphere = 15
- Years after his death that Hieronymus Bosch was called “the devil’s painter” = 30
- Number of glazed ceramic sections on a Renaissance relief sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum, which was acquired in 1899 and is now being restored for an August exhibition in Boston = 40
- Square footage of the “mastodon paper” published in 1859 by The Constellation newspaper in New York, which claimed at the time it was the biggest piece of paper ever made = 49
- Percentage of excavated ancient cuneiform writing that communicates administrative information = 75
- Percentage of 100 surveyed prodigy violinists who started their music studies before the age of seven = 79
- Number of angles each of Berlin’s Museum of Natural History 15 million insect specimens are being photographed from for an online 3D imaging project = 100