Art, Painting | featured news

The enigmatic smile remains a mystery, but French scientists say they have cracked a few secrets of the "Mona Lisa." French researchers studied seven of the Louvre Museum's Leonardo da Vinci paintings, including the "Mona Lisa," to analyze the master's use of successive ultrathin layers of paint and glaze - a technique that gave his works their dreamy quality.

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

Picasso's "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust" sold for more than $106 million at Christie's on Tuesday, setting a record for art sold at auction.

Three months of work went into repairing “The Actor” after a woman accidentally fell into the canvas, causing a six-inch tear.

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 significant Pablo Picasso painting was damaged after a woman attending art class lost her balance, fell into " The Actor " and tore it, The Metropolitan Museum of Art said.

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

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.

The canvas of the Mona Lisa was undamaged after a Russian tourist hurled a terra cotta mug at the Da Vinci masterpiece last week.

Two paintings by Pablo Picasso are bought at auction in New York, just 24 hours after another of his works failed to sell.