Fine Art

Among the prominent sitters for the Austrian artist Wilhelm Viktor Krausz (1878-1959) was Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis.

Portrait miniatures and sporting pictures were chief among the solid sellers in a traditional assemblage of paintings at Chorley’s (20% buyer’s premium) Country House sale in Gloucestershire on January 29.

Works by two artists who made the ocean their muse were the focus of a small collection at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (21% buyer’s premium) on January 29.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Good art at a great price in regional sales.

MADAM – Regarding Bid Barometer, ATG No 2377, your readers might be interested to know that the portrait painting featured is in fact a self-portrait of Helen Lessore (of Beaux Arts Gallery fame).

Obituaries for a portrait miniatures expert and a renowned Sevres expert.

Every year, a female portrait is chosen as the ‘Face of the Fair’ at CADA (see main story for fair details).

A huge linen mural by Victor Pasmore (1908-88) which until recently was believed to be lost serves as the centrepiece of Marlborough Fine Art’s next exhibition.

A record for a female Old Master and a Rubens with a royal connection was not quite enough to heat up bidding across the latest Old Master auction series in New York this winter.

Julian Trevelyan’s (1910-88) final oil painting, depicting Strawberry Hill against a pink sky, sold in the first hours of Connect – The Independent Art Fair’s inaugural staging on January 29.

A painting by Scottish artist Dorothy Johnstone (1892-1980), executed near the peak of her career in 1921 made £3250 at Edinburgh saleroom Franklin Browns (15% buyer’s premium).

This inter-war ‘English school’ portrait of a seated gentleman wearing a bow tie, bought for around £150 three decades ago, sold for an unexpected £7600 at Charterhouse (21% buyer’s premium) on January 17. The unfinished 4ft 2in x 3ft 4in (1.27 x 1.01m) oil was dated 1922 but unsigned.

Three modestly valued works in regional sales.

A small but select auction of just 44 lots of paintings spanning 500 years from Old Masters to 20th century works will go under the hammer at Freeman’s on February 27.

A collection of 18 bronzes of thoroughbred racing horses by major French animalier sculptors is to be offered at Drouot on February 22 by Beaussant-Lefėvre. They include examples by Isadore Bonheur, Pierre-Jules Mène and Emmanuel Fremiet.

“There’s no money around in January” is the refrain you often hear from businesses in the new year. But, as we know, the auction world behaves differently from other commercial markets.