Europe, Art | featured news

The first official portrait of Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, has been unveiled at London's National Portrait Gallery -- but has met with a mixed reaction from art critics and the public. Award-winning artist Paul Emsley, who spent three-and-a-half months painting the Duchess's likeness, said he had tried to portray her warmth and personality in the picture.

To some it's just a bunch of bird drawings. To others, John James Audubon's "Birds of America" is a rare blend of art, natural history and craftsmanship, unique enough to be the world's most expensive book, expected to fetch more than $9.5 million at a London auction Tuesday....

A retired French electrician and his wife have come forward with 271 undocumented, never-before-seen works by Pablo Picasso estimated to be worth at least euro60 million ($79.35 million), an administrator of the artist's estate said Monday.

A vase that sat, little-noticed, in a modest suburban home has become one of the most expensive Asian artworks ever sold -- and underlined the rapid rise of the Chinese art market.

Thieves steal a work by Picasso and other pictures - a day after a major art theft from a gallery in Paris.

A newly authenticated Van Gogh has gone on display 35 years after a discredited art collector bought it in Paris, convinced it was painted by the famed Dutch master but never able to prove it.

A painting by the Impressionist master Edgar Degas has been stolen at an exhibition in Marseille.

Italian tax police say they have seized a secret stash of masterpieces from the disgraced founder of a collapsed dairy company.

A painting by the Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte was stolen from a small Brussels museum this morning by two armed men who rang the doorbell before putting a gun to the concierge's head.