Novelist Jane Austen has been given a makeover for the cover of a book about her life after publishers decided an original image of her was unattractive. "She was not much of a looker," said Helen Trayler, managing director of publisher Wordsworth Editions. Publishers traditionally use a portrait of Austen painted by her sister but Wordsworth have added make-up, hair extensions and removed her night-cap. The book is a new edition of a memoir by Austen's nephew. "I know you are not supposed to judge a book by its cover. Sadly people do. Full Article

A secret buyer has paid more than 10 times the minimum estimate for a work by an Irish artist. Study of Francis Bacon, by Louis le Brocquy, was sold at London auction house Sotheby's. The watercolour made £153,600, and was guided to fetch as little as £15,000. Le Brocquy, who this year celebrates his 90th birthday, painted several portraits of Francis Bacon, a fellow artist and friend. The work was sold at Sotheby's annual sale of Irish art, which for the first time was looking at post-war and contemporary artists. Full Article

Britain's national museum of design, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, has opened a new showcase for its huge collection of Islamic art. The Jameel Gallery has been paid for in part by a wealthy Saudi business family. When the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) opened in 1852 it was meant to improve standards of commercial design in Britain. From the outset it turned its eye to Islam - the Victorians realised they had a lot to learn from Middle Eastern traditions of ornament, especially in carpets and ceramics. Full Article

An amateur artist from Leicester has carved a series of melon sculptures of England's World Cup heroes. Amrat Parmar, 64, an aerospace engineer, has only been carving the melons since January when a friend suggested he give it a try. Mr Parmar said World Cup fever convinced him to carve David Beckham, Stephen Gerrard and Wayne Rooney. "Everyone is talking about the World Cup - so I decided to carve these footballers," he said. He is not selling the melons - which will last for about a week if left in the freezer overnight - and has displayed them at several local pubs. Full Article

Artist William Scott sinks his hands into a mass of soft, wet clay. Using his thumbs he carefully shapes the clay into the nose of an Afro-American basketball player. Scott recently sold out a one-man show of his striking ceramic busts at the prestigious White Columns Gallery in New York. His work has been displayed at galleries across the United States and Europe and is sought after by art collectors worldwide. William Scott is also severely autistic. He is one of 150 artists with mental and physical disabilities based at the Creative Growth Art Centre, a former car repair workshop in the industrial district of Oakland, near San Francisco. Full Article

A portrait by Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani of his lover Jeanne Hebuterne has sold for £16.3m. The oil painting, Jeanne Hebuterne (au chapeau), dates from 1919 - a year before Modigliani died of tuberculosis. Ms Hebuterne, who was eight months pregnant, committed suicide a day after the artist's death. The painting was part of a sale of modern and impressionist art, which raised almost £89m at London auction house Sotheby's on Monday. An 1895 pastel of a woman bathing by French artist Edgar Degas sold for £6.7m in the same auction. Full Article

A rare painting by Vincent Van Gogh has sold at auction in New York for more than $40m (£22m). L'Arlesienne, Madame Ginoux commanded the fourth highest price on record for a work by the renowned Dutch artist. The 1890 painting was one in a series of five created in homage to Van Gogh's friend, the artist Paul Gaugin. Madame Marie Ginoux owned a cafe in Arles, France where both artists lived briefly. It was during this period that Van Gogh cut off his own ear. The painting was created while the artist recovered at an asylum in Provence, France. Writing to Gauguin in 1890, Van Gogh said of his work: "It gives me enormous pleasure when you say the Arlesienne's portrait, which was based strictly on your drawing, is to your liking. Full Article

A Picasso portrait of his lover Dora Maar has been sold for $95.2m (£51.8m), the second highest amount ever paid for a painting at auction. The 1941 masterpiece Dora Maar With Cat was sold to an anonymous buyer at Sotheby's in New York on Wednesday. Sotheby's said Dora's "sculptural presence" and the "gorgeous palate of colours" made it worth so much. Its value ranked it behind another Picasso piece, Boy with a Pipe, which fetched a record $104m (£57m) in 2004. Full Article

A JMW Turner oil painting has become the most expensive British painting ever sold at auction after going under the hammer at Christie's in New York. It fetched more than $35m - but how does that compare to other record-breakers?
Pablo Picasso, Garcon a la Pipe, $104m, May 2004
This painting of a young Parisian working boy crowned with a garland of roses, holding a pipe in his left hand, broke the $100m barrier when bought by an anonymous bidder at Sotheby's in New York. Full Article

Pixar - the iconic animation company that produced Toy Story, Monsters Inc and Finding Nemo - is marking its 20th anniversary. But can digital cartoons ever have the same charm as hand-drawn characters? Let there be light. Well, an anglepoise lamp to be precise. It's 20 years since Pixar, the mega-billion animation company, launched its first movie - a short film about a lamp with a life of its own, called Luxo Jr. Full Article

One of the last portraits painted by Pablo Picasso is to go on display at Sotheby's auction house in London. Dora Maar With Cat, which depicts one of the Spanish artist's many lovers, is expected to fetch $50m (£28.5m) when it goes on sale in New York on 3 May. The 1941 artwork will become one of the 10 most expensive paintings ever sold if it commands that price. Full Article

Chinese micro-painter Jing Ying Hua has painted an image of a giant panda on a single human hair. The artist took 10 days to create the mini-masterpiece using a single rabbit hair as a paintbrush. Vistors to a Chinese gallery who wanted to view the tiny artwork had to look at it through a microscope. Other micro-painters include Russian artist Valeriy Dvoryanov who creates oil paintings of famous people on poppy seeds and grains of rice. Full Article