U.K. Museum Races to Acquire 18th-Century Portrait of Black Gardener

The Garden Museum in London has launched a campaign to raise £420,000 ($560,000) to acquire the earliest known portrait of a Black British gardener, John Ystumllyn. Painted by an unknown artist in 1754, the work depicts Ystumllyn as a young man in a blue suit and waistcoat. He was abducted from West Africa as a child, trained as a gardener on the Ystumllyn estate in Wales, and later became a renowned horticulturist. The painting has been on loan to the museum since 2023, and the institution aims to permanently display it alongside another portrait of a Black gardener from 1905.

An $18 million Banksy sold in an exclusive auction at Tiffany & Co. in New York

Un Banksy da 18 milioni di dollari venduto in un’asta esclusiva da Tiffany & Co. a New York

Fair Warning, an invitation-only online auction platform founded by former Christie's rainmaker Loïc Gouzer, sold Banksy's 2012 painting *Girl and Balloon on Found Landscape* for nearly $18 million at a live auction held in Tiffany & Co.'s Manhattan flagship store on May 20, 2026. The sale was conducted by Jussi Pylkkänen, another former Christie's star auctioneer, and the work—never before publicly shown—had a pre-sale estimate of $13–18 million, making it the third most expensive Banksy ever sold at auction.

One of the Rarest King Arthur Manuscripts Could Fetch Millions at Auction

Christie’s will auction the Clermont-Tonnerre Grail, a rare illuminated manuscript from the Lancelot-Grail Cycle (circa 1300), on July 8 at its Valuable Books and Manuscripts sale in London. Expected to fetch £1.5 million–£2 million ($2 million–$2.6 million), the artifact has remained in private hands for 700 years and is one of only three complete Vulgate Cycle manuscripts in private ownership. The 126 illustrations are attributed to the Master of the Liége Apocalypse, and the manuscript boasts a distinguished provenance including French nobility and British baron Thomas Phillipps.