This year, the art market saw a return to form, with sellers regaining confidence in consigning good works. We survey the top five results in key markets Impressionist & Modern Vincent van Gogh, Laboureur dans un champ (1889), $81.3m (£62.1m), Christie’s New York, 13 November Fernand Léger, Contraste de forms (1913), $70m (£53.5m), Christie’s New […]
Qi Baishi paintings set new $141m record for Chinese artist
A 12-panel set of ink-brush paintings by the Chinese traditional master Qi Baishi sold on Sunday, 17 December, at Poly Auction Beijing for a record RMB931.5m ($141m). The sale, to an undisclosed Chinese buyer, is the highest auction price for a Chinese artist. Twelve Landscape Screens, painted in 1925 and measuring 1.8m by 47 cm, […]
Salvador Dalí foundation completes digital catalogue raisonné after 17 years of research
After 17 years of research and analysis, the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation has completed the digital catalogue raisonné of the Spanish Surrealist’s paintings. The project makes more than 1,000 works between 1910 and 1983—excluding watercolours and drawings—freely available on the English, Spanish, Catalan and French versions of the foundation’s website. The online resource, compiled by the […]
Saudi Prince Revealed as Buyer of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Salvator Mundi’
The buyer of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting Salvator Mundi (ca. 1500), which as of last month is the most expensive artwork ever sold, is the Saudi Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al-Saud. The buyer’s identity, reported by the New York Times this evening, was discovered in the midst of an investigation into Saudi Arabia’s […]
Frick Buys Its First Painting Since 1991
For the first time since 1991, The Frick Collection has bought a painting: a full-length portrait of Prince Camillo Borghese by the French artist François Gérard. It will be on view starting Oct. 31, 2018. The oil painting, at nearly 7 feet tall, depicts Borghese, who was a prominent arts patron and the brother-in-law of […]
Dezeen’s top 10 designs of 2017 that aim to create a better future
In a year filled with turbulent politics, humanitarian crises and environmental issues, designers have responded with imaginative concepts and solutions. Design editor Alice Morby continues our review of 2017 with her pick of the best. Liuzhou Forest City by Stefano Boeri Architect Stefano Boeri wants to help rid China of its smog problem with his design for a […]
Reflections: Van Eyck and the Pre-Raphaelites
National Gallery UK 2 October 2017 – 2 April 2018 Sunley Room Acquired by the National Gallery in 1842, the Arnolfini Portrait informed the Pre-Raphaelites’ belief in empirical observation, their ideas about draughtsmanship, colour and technique, and the ways in which objects in a picture could carry symbolic meaning. The exhibition will bring together for […]
Artworks by Kennedy and Trump up for auction
One piece of art features a row of tall New York City buildings rising above squiggly green trees and bright-yellow taxi cabs that wind through the streets below. The other shows a collection of homes with slanted roofs packed along a scenic waterfront, with several sailboats bobbing nearby. Both were created by US presidents and […]
Saint Jerome (around 1605), one of three works by Caravaggio going on tour from the Galleria Borghese in Rome Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo – Galleria Borghese
Rome’s Galleria Borghese is launching a three-year partnership with the Italian luxury goods brand Fendi to create an international study centre dedicated to Caravaggio. The museum inside a 17th-century villa is one of 20 leading Italian institutions, including the Gallerie degli Uffizi in Florence and Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, that gained financial independence from […]
The Case of the Mafia and the Stolen Caravaggio
Meet Charley Hill, the legendary bloodhound who has retrieved stolen masterpieces the world over. Most notably, Edvard Munch’s The Scream, taken from the National Gallery of Norway in 1994 and rescued by Charley from the basement of a summer house in Oslo Fjord. “The art world enables me to see the worst in everyone—myself and […]