Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer made headlines when it was sold last month, but behind the dizzying price and the magnificent artwork hides the story of an ingenious ruse to escape Nazi persecution

Ushering in the New Year are the Decorative Fair, brimming with good-quality antiques, and the London Art Fair, with its tradition of tipping artists in the early stages of their career

Leigh Lawson has embraced acting and poetry with the same determination that sustained Marie Lloyd, the music-hall queen whose memorabilia he collects, as Carla Passino discovers

Exhibition of the week William Nicholson Pallant House ...

The secret meaning of Vermeer’s art

The Big Apple’s annual Winter Show brings together handsome American furniture with Gustavian pieces, English folk art and an extraordinary samurai helmet, as a Rembrandt self-portrait stars across the ocean at BRAFA in Brussels