Fine Art

A sketch attributed to John Constable (1776-1837) uncovered in a Holland Park home is to be offered at auction in Maidenhead – the latest in a string of Constable sketch discoveries.

Landscape painter Sidney Richard Percy (1821-86) is described in Christopher Wood’s Dictionary of Victorian Painters as “a prolific and variable painter, and his prices vary accordingly”.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales at £750 or under, including an oil by designer known more for Arts & Crafts jewellery and furniture.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

'View from the Back of 72 Bute Street' is one of the pictures by Welsh painter Charles Burton available at Martin Tinney Gallery this month.

Somerset auction shows how bidders are very sensitive to how works are estimated.

One notable consequence of the growing prevalence of charity shops on the high street is that auctioneers are receiving more and more items that these organisations want to check in case they are valuable.

An Art Deco bronze by Demétre Chiparus (1886-1947) sold for more than £20,000 at the latest 'Art and Antiques for Everyone' fair – the first edition under the management of MAD Events.

MADAM – The BBC’s 'Fake or Fortune?' returned to TV screens last month with a Thomas Gainsborough mystery. I watched with great interest, and a degree of trepidation.

It may be a well-rehearsed refrain, but the Old Master market is much more subject to vagaries of supply than demand. Almost without fail, when high-quality fresh material is offered, bidders will come. Just getting it in the first place is the hard part.

Original lithographs by Joan Miró and Marc Chagall star at Eames Fine Art’s exhibition 'Behind the Mirror'. Held at the Bermondsey galley from August 8-September 1, the show is named for the magazine, Derrière le Miroir, the leading modern art publication in 20th century Paris along with Verve.

Christie’s highest price for an Old Master this summer came in the stand-alone Masterpieces from a Rothschild Collection sale on July 4.

While the vast majority of works at Old Master sales are by European artists, an unusual offering at Bonhams’ sale on July 3 was a Latin American work by a painter with Afro-Caribbean ancestry.

MADAM – I have just read the article on the painting by Richard Lin sold recently in the McCartneys Ludlow auction for £84,000 (Art Market, ATG No 2401).

MADAM – I’m sure I’m not the first to write about this but could the inscription on the mount of the picture attributed to Glyn Philpot (Art Market, ATG No 2399) have read or was meant to be C Phillott?