Damien Hirst has set new records with the first day of his sale . The works for sale include  The Golden Calf - a bull in a tank of formaldehyde, with its head crowned by a gold disc - which sold for £9.2m ($16.5m).

The extraordinary body of new work to be showcased at Sotheby’s is among his best yet.The Kingdom - a tiger shark also in formaldehyde - which sold for £9.6m ($17.2m). It had been estimated at about half that price.

The Black Sheep with the Golden Horn, another animal in formaldehyde, sold for £2.6m, within its £2-3m estimate.

The auction, entitled Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, was the first of three that will sell a total of 223 art works by Mr Hirst.

Madonna's husband Guy Ritchie is pulling out all the stops for the Material Girl's 50th birthday bash this week. He has secretly commissioned a  new work by urban graffiti artist Banksy . Just what the tagger comes up with is anyone's guess . No doubt a work of stunning originality and imagination . Well, there's a first time for everything . Madonna will be thrilled I'm sure

Eilean Donan Castle pictures gallery - beautiful pictures of mystical castle in the Scottish Highlands

small bronze sparrow which was part of a Tracey Emin sculpture which had gone missing from its home in Liverpool has been returned.

An anonymous caller left a message on BBC Radio Merseyside's answerphone, saying they had left the £60,000 artwork in the grounds of The Oratory.

The bird was found in an envelope marked "FAO Tracey Emin: URGENT!"

A note inside read: "We are sorry - No harm meant. We would have returned it sooner but we were scared xxx."

The local BBC station discovered the disappearance of the bird earlier this week and contacted the police.

Tracey Emin said it was "a crime and an insult to Liverpool."

The artwork, The Roman Standard, which features the 10cm (4in) sparrow on a 4m (13ft) pole, was commissioned by the BBC for the art05 festival three years ago. Emin's work in general is pretty appalling but this sculpture looks quite nice. Must have been made by someone else

Tango Busking by Beryl Cook .

Tango Busking

- 2002

Artist: Beryl Cook

A smartly-dressed man and woman tango-ing in the street while a man plays the accordion in the background. The woman is wearing a red dress with red and blue flower pattern black shoes the man is wearing white shirt trousers red cravat black shoes and a trilby hat. Man playing accordion is wearing blue suit with a white-suited man behind.

Please Call To Order This Artwork

Image Size: 490 mm x 487 mm

Paper Size: 634 mm x 609 mm

Edition Size: 395

Unframed Price: £ 1500.0

The latest work by controversial artist Banksy is a mural ‘One Nation Under CCTV’ painted next to a CCTV camera at a Post Office yard in the West End of London. Banksy said”We could have put prints up for sale and made a fortune, but that’s not what this is about. We wanted people to be able to come here and have a go themselves. We did a show where we gave away free canvases to kids a couple of years ago, and this is just a progression from that. We’re giving away a piece of wall instead of the canvas.’

French graffiti legend Blek le Rat is set to appear . Banksy is a huge fan. ‘Every time I think I’ve painted something slightly original, I find out that Blek le Rat has done it, too,’ he says, ‘only Blek did it 20 years earlier.’

Described as Britain’s Andy Warhol, undercover graffiti guerrilla Banksy is not only our most important working artist, but one of the world’s most elusive criminals.

In January, a wall defaced by his spray can sold for £208,100. Everyone from Jude Law to Brangelina has his politically charged stencils on their walls

Dining Out by Beryl Cook . Silkscreen print. Here is an opportunity to own a VERY RARE Beryl Cook silkscreen print. The picture shows a busy restaurant with a woman juggling champagne bottles. VERY RARE. IN STOCK READY TO SHIP. Please Call 01324 883305 To Order This Artwork Image Size: 686 mm x 690 mm Paper Size: 839 mm x 85 mm Edition Size: 300

Gare du Nord by Beryl Cook . Silkscreen Print. Signed by Beryl Cook. People waiting at Gare Du Nord train station in Paris France. Has a lady sitting down eatting while there is a couple kissing in the background. VERY RARE. IN STOCK READY TO SHIP. Please Call 01324 883305 To Order This Artwork Image Size: 434 mm x 710 mm Paper Size: 913 mm x 615 mm Edition Size: 300

An abstract portrait by Pablo Picasso on Wednesday smashed the record for an artwork sold in Australia, netting £3.1 million pounds) at an auction in Sydney.

The 1954 painting "Sylvette", which clearly showed the ponytail and young face of model and later successful artist, Sylvette David, amid bright swathes of red, yellow and green, was sold to an unidentified phone bidder.

"Sydney is the New York of the art market in the southern hemisphere," Deutscher-Menzies Galleries spokeswoman Marie Geissler told Reuters, adding the sale proved Australian galleries could sell works internationally.

The Picasso easily broke the country's previous record of A$3.48 million, paid for a work last year by Brett Whiteley, the late wild-haired bad boy of Australian Art.

Australia has been experiencing a year-long boom in art sales, driven by cashed-up collectors involved in the country's China-driven mining boom.

Master of the mediocre Banksy does it again . Two spray paintings by Banksy sold for an above-estimate £120,000 pounds each in a London sale of urban art last night.

“Laugh Now but One Day We’ll Be in Charge“  featuring a chimpanzee wearing a sandwich board, and “Bombing Middle England,” showing pensioners playing bowls with grenades, achieved the joint top price with fees at a sale by the U.K. regional auction house.

The most highly valued work in the catalog was Banksy’s early freehand painting, “Portrait of an Artist.” This failed to sell against estimates of 150,000 pounds to 200,000 pounds. Banksy’s stencil-on-foam board, “Glastonbury Sign,” acquired by the seller directly from the artist at the 2003 Glastonbury pop festival, sold for a mid-estimate 45,600 pounds.

They had been expected to fetch up to 50,000 pounds and 80,000 pounds each. Both were bought by telephone bidders. The 146-lot sale in an industrial space in Shoreditch, east London, the first of its type ever organized by a regional auction house, totaled 801,204 pounds with fees against an estimate of 672,000 pounds to 977,000 pounds, with 89 percent of the lots sold during the three-hour event, the company said.

“The results were mixed in places,” said Stephan Ludwig. “But considering what’s happening in the broader economy, particularly in an area like property, it showed that the market for this kind of art is resilient.”