1. When the Mona Lisa was stolen in August 1911, French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who had once called for the Louvre to be “burnt down,” came under suspicion; he was arrested and put in jail. Apollinaire tried to implicate his friend Pablo Picasso, who was also brought in for questioning, but both were later exonerated. The real thief – Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia was discovered 2 years later and only served six months in jail for the crime. (Wikipedia)

2. Salvador Dali had a peculiar way of napping.  Daily after his lunch, he would sit down with his arms extending beyond the chair’s arms. In one hand he would grasp a key between thumb and forefinger. After he fell asleep, his fingers would relax, the key would fall to the floor, the clatter would wake him up, and he would harvest the wild associations common to the first few minutes of sleep. (Washington Post)

3. The art market experiences similar bubbles to the stock market. For example, the art market soared in 1985 to 1990, when the compound annual return of the art market was 30%. It subsequently tanked in 1991-1995, losing 65% of its value. Art experienced another bubble in 2003 through 2007, during which the art index had at CAR of 20%. This bubble too burst with the collapse of the stock market 23.5%. For the past 10 and five year periods however, the Moses Mei All Art Index outperformed the stock market, returning a CAR of 5.5% and 3.3% respectively, compared with stock returns of -1.3% and -0.1%. (Pamela J. Black – On Wall Street)

4. Natural Ultramarine which is found in nature as a component of the semi precious stone lapis lazuli, is the most difficult pigment to grind by hand, and for all except the highest quality of mineral sheer grinding and washing produces only a pale grayish blue powder. The oldest use of lapis lazuli as a pigment can be seen in the 6th- and 7th-century AD cave paintings in Afghanistani, Zoroastrian and Buddhist temples, near the source of the mineral. The pigment was most extensively used during the 14th through 15th centuries, as its brilliance complemented the vermilion and gold of illuminated manuscripts and Italian panel paintings. Synthetic versions of ultramarine have been around since 1928 though it is not as vivid or permanent. (Wikipedia)

5. Tachisme, derived from the French word tache–stain,  is a French style of abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. It is often considered to be the European equivalent to abstract expressionism. It was part of a larger postwar movement known as Art Informel which abandoned geometric abstraction in favour of a more intuitive form of expression, similar to action painting. (Wikipedia)