Henry Herbert La Thangue, Ligurian Grapes. Estimate: £200,000-300,000. Photo: Christie’s Images Ltd 2010. The vitality of the market for Victorian & British Pictures including Drawings & Watercolours continues to gain notable momentum, as demonstrated by the multiple world auction records set at the December 2009 sale where ‘spirited bidding from buyers swept up with Victorian [...]

A member of the public looks at The Charnel House as part of the Picasso: Peace And Freedom exhibition. Lenin used the term “useful idiots” to describe Western liberals who turned a blind eye to the true nature of totalitarianism – and few were more idiotic or more useful to the Soviet cause than Pablo [...]

A lone thief broke into a Paris museum last night and stole five paintings worth €500m (£430m) including masterpieces by Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, French police said today. A police spokesman said works by Picasso, Matisse, George Braque, Amedeo Modigliani and Fernand Léger were reported missing early this morning from the Paris Museum of [...]

Domenichino, Saint John the Evangelist, late 1620s. On loan from a private collection, © Private collection 2010. One of the greatest works by the Italian Baroque master Domenichino (1581–1641) is to remain in Britain and is now on public display in Room 32 of the National Gallery, having been acquired by an anonymous private collector. [...]

Christie’s mid-season Russian Art sale on 8 June will offer a strong section of more than 60 lots of Fabergé, including a private collection of 45 lots from a European Royal Family. Highlights of this fine and distinguished Royal collection include a two-colour gold-mounted nephrite table clock, with Henrik Wigström (estimate £80,000- 120,000) as well [...]

U.S. sculptor Richard Serra, renowned for his large-scale metal structures, has been named the winner of Spain’s prestigious Prince of Asturias award in the arts for his innovative ability to integrate urban spaces in his work, organizers said. The Prince of Asturias Foundation described Serra Wednesday as one of the “most relevant sculptors of the [...]

A view of a portrait which Italian art experts now believe to have been created by Renaissance genius Raphael in Florence, Italy, 07 May 2010. The painting had lain in storage in a ducal palace since the 1970s. At the time, experts said it was probably a 17th-century copy of a painting from the Raphael [...]