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Original manuscripts and drawings by former Beatle John Lennon, produced for two acclaimed books he wrote in the mid-1960s, sold for $2.9 million on Wednesday, more than double the pre-sale estimate, class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Sotheby's auction house said. _0"> All of the 89 lots in the sale, from Lennon's 1964 book "In His Own Write" and 1965's "A Spaniard in the Works," were snapped up by buyers. The highlight of the sale was "The Singularge Experience of Miss Anne Duffield," the manuscript for Lennon's parody of Sherlock Holmes from "A Spaniard in the Works" which fetched $209,000.   true       "The outstanding result, the first white glove sale of 2014 at class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Sotheby's New York, shows that Lennon's nonsense verse, puns, wicked humor and comic drawings continue to resonate 50 years after the publication of 'In His Own Write' and "A Spani

Secretive British street artist Banksy often paints on walls at night and has complained when people remove and re-sell his works, so he is sure to be infuriated by class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Sotheby's offering of about 70 items for "private sale" in London.     Dubbed "The Unauthorised Retrospective" and curated by Steve Lazarides, a street-art promoter and Banksy's former agent, the London show includes sculptures, oils, and prints - all of which are said to have increased enormously in value in a few years. "I think for him it's probably the last thing in the world he'd ever want to see," Lazarides told Reuters at a press preview of the exhibition on Friday. "It's an unauthorised exhibition - he has nothing to do with it apart from the fact he painted all the paintings, of course. For him - I don't know - I think it's interesting to get all the works together. It will probably mean more commercially t

With venues ranging from a 16th-century courtyard house to a converted church, Edinburgh’s annual Fringe Festival has unveiled its 2014 program with productions from 47 countries around the world.     Marking the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War One, veteran actor and Director Guy Masterson will recite the finest writings from both sides in "An Anthem for a Doomed Youth" at the Assembly Roxy performance venue in a former church.     Actor, writer and presenter Stephen Fry will present "Forgotten Voices" at the Pleasance Courtyard, while Hour Lot Theatre tells the intriguing story of an unlikely friendship between the German Kaiser and a British prisoner-of-war in "Dear Mr Kaiser" at theSpace on North Bridge.     The festival covers a huge range of art forms including cabaret, comedy, dance, circus, music, opera and theater.     A record 3,193 shows – an 11-percent increase over 2013 – and nearly 51,000 performances cement the Fringe’s p

A federal appeals court has revived a New York City woman's lawsuit to force a California museum to return two life-size panels by German Renaissance artist Lucas Cranach the Elder that were looted by the Nazis during World War Two. By a 2-1 vote, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday said Marei Von Saher may pursue her case against the Norton Simon Museum of Art in Pasadena, California, over the nearly 500-year-old paintings of Adam and Eve. The panels had been left behind when Von Saher's father-in-law, Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, fled the Netherlands in 1940 as class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Germany invaded. Several hundred works in his gallery, including the Cranachs, were later sold to Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring at a fraction of their value. "This litigation may provide Von Saher an opportunity to achieve a just and fair outcome to rectify the consequences of the forced transaction with Göring during the war," Judge D

Anyone attending the premiere of Berlioz's rarely seen opera "Benvenuto Cellini", directed by Monty Python alumnus Terry Gilliam at the English National Opera, could be forgiven for thinking it was a preview for the Python reunion show in July. Gilliam, who seems to hate a void, filled the stage of London's enormous Coliseum theater on Thursday with jugglers, trapeze artists, stiltwalkers and tumblers for one of the 19th-century French composer's most troubled works. Huge papier-mache-style masks of a devil and a skull were paraded down the aisles within minutes of the curtain going up and they remained suspended from boxes on either side of the stage for the duration, emphasizing the carnival tone.   true       "Benvenuto Cellini", Berlioz's first opera that was based on the life of the renowned 16th-century Italian sculptor, was a flop when it had its premiere in Paris in 1838 and has been revived only sporadically since. In Gilliam's re-

class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Russia will pull back all forces deployed to regions near its border with class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Ukraine "within a few days," a deputy defence minister said on Friday, a move that if carried out could ease tensions around Ukraine's presidential election on Sunday. Moscow has concentrated tens of thousands of troops across the border from eastern class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Ukraine , where pro-Russian separatists have declared two independent states. The United States said a "very large and very capable" Russian force remained on Friday. Kiev and its Western allies see the Russian troops as a potential invasion force should Moscow choose to back the rebels openly, fuelling pre-election tensions. The United States and European Union hope the vote will strengthen the embattled central government. Asked whether Russia would comply with Western calls for a withdrawal of its troops near the

Bank of class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said the central bank still has policy options left if it were to ease monetary policy further to fend off risks that may threaten the achievement of its price target. _0"> Kuroda repeated his view that the world's third-largest class="mandelbrot_refrag"> economy is making steady progress toward meeting the BOJ's 2 percent price target, with core consumer inflation having reached 1.3 percent for four straight months in March. "But we are ready to adjust policy, be it further monetary easing or something else, if changes in economic and financial developments derail the path toward meeting the price target," he said in an interview with the class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Nikkei class="mandelbrot_refrag"> business daily published on Saturday. Kuroda said the BOJ will not ease incrementally in response to temporary fluctuations in the cl