Reuters

A tiara passed down through generations of Italy's royal family will be among the highlights at a Sotheby's auction of jewels in Geneva next week.

British street artist Nathan Murdoch contemplates the mural he has just spray-painted, a giant image of two hands wearing rainbow-coloured gloves and joined in prayer, then hurls a large dollop of white paint straight at it from an open tin.

Former Israeli army sniper David Roytman has turned his hand to action painting, using guns and live-fire ranges instead of brushes and studios to blast colours onto canvases.

Sotheby's said on Tuesday it would accept bitcoin and ethereum as payment for Banksy's iconic artwork "Love is in the Air", a first for a physical art auction and the latest sign of growing mainstream acceptance of cryptocurrencies.

After months of practising aerial acrobatics suspended from the ceiling in her tiny apartment in Budapest with only her cats for an audience, Hungarian circus artist Eszter Kovacs is relishing the prospect of performing in front of people again.

Brooklyn artist Steve Wasterval loves Greenpoint, his New York neighborhood in the borough of Brooklyn. He loves it so much, in fact, that he paints tiny Impressionist-style street scenes of it for its residents to find.

Private collectors have a rare opportunity next week to buy some of Napoleon Bonaparte's DNA when a blood-stained cloth placed over his body during an autopsy goes on sale at an auction to mark the 200th anniversary of his death.

Art lovers eager to know whether a mysterious painting discovered in Spain is the work of Italian master Caravaggio must wait a few more months, said the gallery entrusted with establishing who the artist is.

A group of chocolatiers in Spain's Basque Country are creating a version of "Guernica", Pablo Picasso's masterpiece representing the bombing of a small Basque town in 1937, to showcase their skills and celebrate their cultural heritage.