Opinion
This years’s total sales were nearly half those of last year, which some critics say is a symptom of a bloated market with overly ambitious estimates. Even a Van Gogh painting went unsold this year.
News
Centuries before Wester Europe coined the term, "renaissance man," artist Su Shi moonlighted as a pharmacologist, gastronome, and statesman for the Song Dynasty.
News
Dalí's Freudian delusions of love might make you feel better if you're having a lackluster Valentine's Day.
Art
A cup made from a human skull has an inscription that attributes it to Lord Byron, who was known to drink wine from such a vessel.
Art
Christie's is auctioning a rare 1692 deposition from the Salem witch trials that helped sentence an elderly widow to death.
Art
In 1801, British writer and engraver Joseph Strutt published a compendium of bizarre medieval pastimes.
Art
Engravings by Francisco Agüera Bustamante in The Astounding Life of Death show the bony figure in a variety of roles, from a baby to a king.
Art
Sotheby's first-ever auction of erotic artworks, timed to Valentine's Day, features a delightful range of objects, including a rare homoerotic painting from 18th-century Turkey.
Art
In these stereoviews populated by skeletons, hell is host to boating races, parties, and even a lavish boudoir for one "Madame Satan."
News
A number of rare sculptures illustrate how starved Buddha would have been after fasting for seven weeks. One of them is being seen publicly for the first time this week ahead of auction.
Art
Tokyo's Lilliput Oval Saloon closed last year and now part its inventory of miniature books, bookshelves, and lecterns is headed to auction.
Art
Utagawa Hirokage has a special humor, which, though at times edging on corny, is often sly and even tinged with eroticism.