I thought I’d seen it all until last week when I read a report about an Italian artist who had auctioned off an ‘invisible’ sculpture for $18,300.

How do you make a sculpture invisible? Er, you don’t. You simply pretend that you have made one, produce a plinth, say that although you can’t see it, it is certainly there, and then attract bids.

If this seems like lunacy, you may not be far wrong. However, Salvatore Garau explained away this exercise in conceptual art by saying: “It is a work that asks you to activate the power of the imagination.”

In doing so, he titled the work Io Sono (I am), arguing that the vacuum in which the ‘artwork’ sat was “nothing more than a space full of energy” – although I would counter that if it is a vacuum, then it wouldn’t have any energy, even if, as Garau continued, the Heisenberg Principle states that even ‘nothing’ has weight.

Nonetheless, if you can conjure no more than an idea from nothing, what was it that the successful bidder got for their money? A certificate of authenticity accompanied by a set of instructions on how to exhibit the invisible sculpture. These stipulated that it must be displayed in a five foot square space unencumbered by any obstruction.

Confident in his logic, Garau justifies his creation and its sale by arguing: “After all, don’t we shape a God we’ve never seen?”

I’ll leave you with that thought.

When you buy and sell art, it’s important to remember that although an artwork itself may change hands, the rights to reproduce it or exploit it commercially through copying it remain with the artist and their heirs right up to seventy years after they have died.

Likewise, just because you have bought a photograph doesn’t mean that you can set up a business selling copies of it if the photographer’s rights are still active.

I was reminded of this by news of an attempt to sell an NFT (Non Fungible Token) of a Jean-Michel Basquiat drawing coming unstuck recently.

Basquiat, a prodigy mentored by Andy Warhol, succumbed to heroin addiction at the tender age of 27 in the late 1980s. Today, he is just about the hottest artist on the market, with top works selling in the tens of millions of dollars. Understandably, his estate guards his rights jealously and took exception to a digital version (in NFT format) of one of his drawings being offered for sale without permission.

As well as the question of copyright, the sale raised a slightly more obscure but no less important issue: that of moral rights. This is because the seller, who also owned the original drawing, offered the winning bidder of the NFT the option of destroying the original drawing. It is thought that the destruction of the original would vest more value in the NFT. However, while someone may acquire a work of art, it is not in their gift to damage or wilfully destroy it, or to exploit it in any other way that might damage the artist’s reputation while the artist’s rights remain active.

This is the area of artist’s rights that is often overlooked yet has just as valid a call on control of artworks as copyright.

Technology may make all sorts of new things possible, but it does not remove longstanding rights to allow them to happen.

To be fair, it was a mangled wreck, yet someone decided to pay nine times its lower estimate of £10,000 to secure it at auction. Why?

The remains of the 1960 Jaguar XK150 S.38 Drophead Coupe look ready for no more than the scrapheap, but a mixture of faith and hope – and possibly a little charity – mean that it will now rise again to wow petrolheads in what must be the ultimate recycling exercise.

This vintage Jag was a very limited edition originally: just 69 of the right-hand drive models were made. It also played a massive role in the development of sports cars; quite an eyeful on its own terms, it also proved to be the stepping stone to the iconic E-Type, arguably the most important British sports car of the 1960s.

This model has been with the vendor since 1969, and they remained the proud owner until it had a serious argument with a tree in 1996, since when it has languished in its current state.

Now though, someone with enough vision and money to make the difference has snapped it up at auction with a view to restoring it to its former glory. I just hope that they film the entire process as they could make a mint out of the rights.

When fully restored, it is thought that it might be worth up to £250,000, so the new owner will have a chance of getting their money back and more if they ever decide to sell.

There has been a lot of talk about antiques being green as they are recycled through the secondhand market at auction or via dealers. But I can’t think of any better illustration of that argument than this XK150.

News that the late great Tommy Cooper’s trademark fez is up for auction with an estimate of £3,000 reminds me of my favourite joke of his: “I’m on a whisky diet; I’ve lost three days already.”

And if the fez is as closely associated with Cooper as the large corona cigar is with Churchill, then nowhere in Scotland – the spiritual home of whisky in more ways than one – is the single malt more closely associated than the island of Islay.

Its various forms include Bowmore (named after the island’s capital), the oily, peaty Lagavulin and Ardbeg, sublime Caol Ila and perhaps the smoothest of all single malts, Bunnahabhain. Port Ellen, Laphroaig and Bruichladdich are other leading brands.

Between them they are thought to provide Islay with one of the highest value exports per capital of any community in the world. With around 3,000 inhabitants and a whisky export industry worth close to £300 million a year, that figure comes out at around £100,000 a head. That beats the leading country per capita export value (Liechtenstein) of around $100,000.

No surprise, then, that dedication to the ‘water of life’ is so strong and widespread, not just on the island itself but among wealthy collectors.

Now there is news that the most extensive and complete collection from Islay is going under the hammer as part of Fèis Ìle, the annual festival of music and malt, on May 24.

The consignment comes from Pat’s Whisky Collection, the largest private collection of whisky ever to come to auction. Those Pat has selected from his 9,000 “bottle library” includes the legendary single cask 1982 Port Ellen, of which only 220 bottles are thought to exist, and a limited issue Bowmore 25-year-old, produced in only 100 bottles.

It’s a collector’s dream.