Fine Art

A BATTERED old Bible in a strongbox with a woodcut pasted on the inside of the lid was sold with a boxed rosary for £6200 by auctioneer Paul Beighton of Thurcroft, near Rotherham on March 9. Behind it there was quite a story.

A world record price for a comic-strip illustration was paid at a specalist sale at Artcurial in Paris on March 29: Georges Remi Hergé’s 1932 ink-and-gouache design for the cover of Tintin en Amérique.

An image that may rewrite the history of photography has been withdrawn from a Sotheby’s New York sale pending further research.

A TOUCH of spring arrived in Dorchester on April 10-11 where amongst a number of five-figure prices at Duke’s two-day sale was this tiny watercolour of a branch of cherry blossom by the prolific Victorian theorist, critic and artist John Ruskin (1819-1900). Dated 1857, it is displayed here a fraction less than its actual size.

THIS lifesize bust of the actor Charles Dance has been stolen from a car only days before it was due to be entered for exhibition.

Three Europeans and four Americans have been charged following the breaking of two international rings involved in the manufacture and distribution of fake 20th century prints.

It’s hard to believe there are still undiscovered works by the most renowned artists hanging unnoticed in dusty corners of private houses. But that is what a Christie’s valuation team discovered last year.

Is the final chapter in the story of Colin Wilson's ‘Giambologna’ monkeys about to be written? Not, it seems, without a twist in the tale.

“THE high point of my career,” was how auctioneer John Anderson described his most recent sale. He had waited 30 years but finally got the chance to offer the Lionel Jacobson collection at Anderson & Garland on March 11-13.

It’s not just the London salerooms that are benefiting from the renewed enthusiasm for Russian works of art. The highlight of the sale conducted by David Lay of Penzance on February 28-29 was this late 19th century silver gilt and cloisonné enamel presentation vodka set.

Two works by big league Impressionists dating from the early years of the movement are in the spotlight this spring.

Six works hooked off wall and reeled in through barred window

Historic archive from engineer who moved Egyptian obelisk surfaces in Exeter

THE global contemporary art market received an important shot in the arm in London last week as Sotheby's set the highest total ever seen for a contemporary art sale in Europe.

Knock-on effect of turbulence in money markets is less dramatic than feared at art auctions

Dukes have negotiated the sale to the nation of two major Pre-Raphaelite paintings. Music by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones and Hamlet and Ophelia by Dante Gabriel Rossetti were found in the Oxfordshire home of the late Jean Preston that also yielded two panels from the San Marco altarpiece by Fra Angelico sold by the Dorchester auctioneers last year for £1.7m.

Having dramatically grown the auction market for Banksy at their mixed media Vision 21 sales, Bonhams are embarking on a new venture – a dedicated sale of Urban Art.

Sotheby’s have agreed to sponsor Tate Britain’s Duveens Commission, thereby allowing this site-specific sculpture commission to become an annual rather than a biennial event.

Scottish auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull started off their year on January 10 with the sale of the Deloitte Art Collection at The Royal Academy in London.

THE 102-year-old Welsh artist Stanley Lewis (b.1905) is trying to locate the current whereabouts of his painting of The Crosyceilliog Blacksmiths.