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PARIS -- It is a most unusual and diverse art exhibition for Unesco, the United Nations arm dedicated to preserving and promoting the world's culture. On Wednesday, 31 rare artifacts and works of art - all of them stolen or illegally exported, mostly in or from Italy - went on display at UNESCO's Paris headquarters, in an exhibition called ''Recovered Treasures.'' ''All the objects were kidnapped at some point,'' said Inigo Martinez Moller, curator of the exhibition, in an interview. ''The point of the exhibition is to show how damaging this illicit traffic can be and how original pieces can be taken apart in violent ways.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PARIS -- When the Musee d'Orsay unveils its makeover this week, visitors will get a fresh view of the world's richest trove of 19th-century artworks by Impressionist masters who essentially financed the Paris museum's $28 million face-lift. Two touring groups of masterworks by Degas, Monet and Renoir and Whistler's portrait of his mother roamed the world for almost two years on a lucrative journey to museums from San Francisco to Madrid, reaping almost $15 million for the remodeling. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]