It was as if the credit crunch and the sub-prime crisis had been left firmly at the elegant auction house door, along with dogs, muddy gumboots and maxed-out credit cards.

ECONOMIST: Sugaring the pill at this week��s auctions

Situated on the banks of the Asian shoreline on the outskirts of the city (about 40 minutes from downtown in the suburb of Kanlica, accessible by shuttle boat) this yali (a word for the wooden residences along the Bosphorus) houses an elegant restaurant with an outdoor terrace serving up Mediterranean and Italian cuisine such as lamb shank confit with the sparkling strait as a backdrop.

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Beauty rolls in waves and seethes in eddies throughout the installations of dazzling ceramics, noble architectural fragments and statuary, fabulous carpets, enchanting miniatures from manuscripts and albums, and the extraordinarily varied and elegant calligraphy of handmade Korans, along with choice fabrics, metalwork, jewelry, and weapons.

NEWYORKER: Old and New