19th Century European Art

A large desert Caravane by Victor Huguet (c.1895), 4ft 4in x 6ft 8in (1.31 x 2.02m) and inspired by Fromentin, led the Delorme-Fraysse picture sale on February 12 with €82,000 (£51,200).

BELGIUM (£1=BFr63): Antwerp's Campo Vlaamse Kaai enjoyed a pleasant pre-Christmas surprise at their two-day sale on December 11/12 when A Hostage, a large work by Edmund Blair Leighton (1853-1922) measuring 3ft 8in by 4ft 10in (1.12 x 1.48m), featuring a girl leaning on a wall, gazing wistfully out to sea, raced to BFr3.1m (£49,200) against an inexplicably low estimate of BFr8000-12,000.

DENMARK: IN September last year, Copenhagen auctioneers Museumsbygningen (25% buyer’s premium) created a stir by achieving DKr1,000,000 (£85,470) for an oil study of a nude by Wilhelm Marstrand (1810-1873) dating from January 3, 1833, the day on which Professor C.F. Eckersberg and five pupils made the first ever paintings of a female life model at the Danish Academy of Fine Arts.

FRANCE: CAVALIER arabe traversant un gue, by Eugene Delacroix, sold for F16.5m (£1.54m) plus 10 per cent buyer’s premium at Gros and Delettrez in collaboration with eauctionroom in Paris on June 18.

FRANCE: POLICE today appealed for help in tracing up to 100 bronzes and other antiques which were stolen in a £1m burglary at a Paris Gallery in June 1998.

UK: TWO brothers involved in an international conspiracy to dispose of two stolen Old Master paintings have had their sentences upheld in the Appeal Court.

UK: Maria Szantho (b. 1898-?) was a Hungarian artist who specialised in glamour girl nudes which crop up with some regularity in the salerooms, generally at prices between £500-3000.