The U.S. art market appears to be on the mend. The major fall art auctions may not have sold everything on offer, but collectors showed a renewed willingness to bid up top examples of artists' work. Dealers also said inflation fears and expectations of higher bonuses in the financial markets stoked strong bidding.

New York's two chief auction houses, Sotheby's and Christie's International, brought in about $596 million combined from their semi annual sales of Impressionist, modern and contemporary art in the past two weeks. The total surpassed the houses' $409 million spring sales in May, a gain that could signal a measure of returning confidence in high-end art values.

The mood among collectors grew increasingly upbeat as the two weeks of sales progressed. At Sotheby's contemporary art sale Wednesday night, a Warhol silkscreen sold for $43.7 million, more than triple its high estimate. At a lively sale of modern and Impressionist art the week before at Sotheby's, an Alberto Giacometti sculpture sold for $19.3 million, well over its $12 million high estimate.

At Christie's, the results were more modest. The house fell short of presale estimates at its Impressionist sale and modern art evening sale Nov. 3, but it performed solidly at Tuesday's post-war and contemporary auction, led by a Peter Doig painting that sold for $10.1 million.

Now he has an exhibition of paintings at London's Wallace Collection, a museum that includes works by Poussin, Titian and Velazquez in its permanent collection. Mr. Hirst seems amused by the idea that showing in a traditional setting, and working in oils, should have an equal capacity to draw attention.

"After seeing me in the studio, covered in paint, someone actually said to me, 'Are you really making these yourself?' But it's funny that that's shocking, that it's more shocking for me to be painting, than formaldehyde," he said in a recent interview. To greet the press, he is wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "The Shock of The New."

*****

This, the first of the paintings in the current show, is, like almost all the others, of a skull against a very dark blue or black background. Others feature grids of spots (executed in white, by pressing the lid of his paint tube against the canvas), shark's jawbones, ashtrays and water glasses sketchily outlined in titanium white. The last is a nod to his old tutor, Michael Craig-Martin, and his conceptual piece "An Oak Tree," which was a glass of water on a glass shelf.

The influence of Francis Bacon, one of Mr. Hirst's great heroes, is immediately apparent, especially in the triptych "The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth," which even uses Bacon's ghostly cages. "You can't avoid comparisons," he says. "I've put Bacon frames on my pictures but you put them in here and everybody's got a gold frame. But if I put it in one of my normal galleries it looks like a Bacon rip-off. You ask: Can I use that? But all great artists do that ... you go through being very heavily influenced."

A Paris laboratory discovered that a fingerprint from the tip of an index or middle-finger, found on the top left of the picture, was "highly comparable" to one found on da Vinci's work St Jerome, which he painted early in his career when he did not have assistants, according to the Antiques Trade Gazette.

The infrared analysis also showed "significant" stylistic parallels with those in da Vinci's Portrait of a Woman in Profile in Windsor Castle.

The ink and chalk drawing was also made by a left-handed artist – as da Vinci was – while carbon dating was consistent with the Milanese fashion the girl was dressed in, from the late 15th century.

The Fishers opened their first store in San Francisco in 1969, and named it The Gap in reference to the generational differences between baby boomers and their parents. When it first opened, the Gap mainly sold Levi's jeans, tapes and records, and it flourished in 1970s as consumers snapped up its denim.

In 1983, the Gap hired Millard Drexler as president, and he successfully overhauled the retailer's image from a seller of Levi's and other denim brands to one of the most popular private-label apparel brands in U.S. history. But in the past decade the retailer has stumbled, hurt by aggressive expansion plans, rising competition and fashion mis-steps. Gap has been working in recent years to overhaul its operations, which now include Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime and Athleta.

Most recently, the Gap chain has launched a major denim campaign, offering jeans with better fits and higher-end styling in hopes of bringing back once-loyal customers who gravitated to more fashionable rivals.

The UBS art gallery, located in the lobby of its building at 1285 Avenue of the Americas, New York City, will close after the current exhibition, "Jack Tworkov: Against Extremes – Five Decades of Painting," finishes at the end of October.

This decision follows recently announced cost-cutting measures, including headcount reductions, organisational realignments, savings initiatives and change programs.

"A large part of The UBS Art Gallery’s success is due to its director, Colin Thomson, who I'd like to thank for his curatorial expertise, dedication, and initiative," said Mark Arena, managing director and head of corporate communications, Americas.

On Sept. 3, a housekeeper for noted art collector Richard L. Weisman walked into the dining room of Weisman's residence on Angelo Drive and noticed several pieces were missing, said Det. Donald Hrycyk, head of the LAPD's Art Theft detail.

A dozen large portraits that had adorned the walls the day before were gone. Hrycyk said there was no sign of forced entry into the home and that nothing else was disturbed, including several other Warhol paintings hanging on nearby walls. There were no immediate leads or suspects, Hrycyk said.

Weisman left the house a full day before the housekeeper discovered the art missing, leaving it unclear when exactly the theft occurred.