Fine Art

Cheffins of Cambridge is offering two drawings by Alberto Giacometti (1901-66) at auction on October 12.

As well as the Richard Platt consignment, David Lay offered more than 100 lots of modern art by a local Cornish family.

Southern softness and northern grit were both on display at Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) of Leyburn on July 15.

Mr Benn is already the hero of his own series of illustrated children’s books and a 13-episode BBC animated programme. In his 50th year, however, there are displays of renewed interest in this adventurous everyman.

Found among the contents of a storage unit, a watercolour of Venice by Edward Lear (1812-88) starred in Brighton General Auctions’ (15% buyer’s premium) sale on July 28.

More than 100 Russian paintings consigned from a single source went under the hammer at Moore Allen & Innocent’s (18% buyer’s premium) July 7 sale in Cirencester.

Tim Goodman’s Fine Art Bourse (FAB) has fallen foul of Facebook’s nudity rules.

Decamping from the Big Smoke of London to the sunny beaches of a Caribbean island might sound like a happy daydream or at best, a holiday. But for Old Master specialist Theo Johns, relocating to the Dominican Republic represents a business strategy as well as a life change.

MADAM – Our estimate (£2000-4000) for Drummond’s Death of Nelson did indeed prove to be conservative but not quite as dismissive as the ‘£100-150’ quoted in the ATG might suggest (Bid Barometer, ATG No 2302).

The summer season brought a raft of modern art sales to continental Europe and the various salerooms around Germany were no exception.

The unexpected highlight of a recent sale at Beurret & Bailly (20% buyer’s premium) in Basel was a work by the Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931) which had been considered lost for over a century.

Austrian artists figured prominently at the June 20-21 sale at Kinsky (26% buyer’s premium) in Vienna.

The biggest sensation at Scheublein (26% buyer’s premium) in Munich on June 30 was caused by an oil painting of American Indians from the mid-19th century. It was an oil study for a famous painting by Carl Ferdinand Wimar (1828-62), who also went by the name of Charles Wimar.

Works by the Pre-Raphaelites and their followers continued to outperform the rest of the Victorian art market during the latest round of sales in London.