Oil painting

EXHIBITION: The bicentenary of the birth of Edward Lear will see works from private collections go on display for the first time during an exhibition at the Ashmolean.

Burstow and Hewett of Battle in East Sussex will offer this landscape painting by Scottish artist Francis Cadell (1883-1937) on September 26.

The major Scottish sales series is already under way but Bonhams will offer their designated two-part sale later, starting on August 20 in Edinburgh.

A market-fresh private Scottish collection of works by John Maclauchlan Milne (1886-1957) has been consigned to Lindsay Burns & Company’s antiques and fine art sale on August 14.

On July 31, Capes Dunn’s Northern Artists sale in Manchester will include ‘Woman Walking’ by L.S. Lowry (1887-1976).

A string of record prices at the latest Old Master sales in London helped the sector to its highest total ever for an auction series.

Paintings and smaller works of art dating back to the time the first Duke of Wellington moved into the house given to him by a grateful nation have been stolen.

Setting a record for the artist and making one the highest prices ever seen for a British picture, John Constable's ‘The Lock’ took £20m at Christie’s evening sale on July 3.

Richard Winterton Auctioneers of Lichfield, Staffordshire will be offering for sale on July 5 a corporate collection of original artwork to include works by Vida Gabor, Jean Chaleye, Sue Ryder and Byron Howard among others.

Sotheby’s latest sale of European Paintings in London proved a seminal event for the work of Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) as five paintings by the Danish painter topped the sale, led by a record price at auction for both the artist and any Danish work of art.

In response to the exhibition of The Lock at the Royal Academy in 1824, The Morning Post wrote: “Mr Constable contributes a landscape composition which for depth, sparkling light, freshness and vigorous effect, exceeds any of his works.” Christie’s will offer the picture for sale as part of their Old Master & British Paintings evening sale on July 3.

Duncan Campbell was a remarkable and unconventional dealer. His gallery in Thackeray Street, Kensington, was packed with pretty much anything that caught his eye, whether it was paintings, prints, pottery, furniture, or tribal art.

They nicknamed him ‘Braaq’ when he was at school in Liverpool, on account of his artistic talent by kids who maybe didn’t know how to spell Georges Braque’s name.

A string of record prices for leading names in the Contemporary art market saw the amount of money raised in the latest New York auction series heading back to boom-time levels.

Setting a record any post-War work of art ever sold at auction, Mark Rothko’s (1903-1970) oil on canvas 'Orange, Red, Yellow' sold for $77.5m (£50m) at Christie’s Contemporary art evening sale on May 8.

A studio collection of works by Charles James Adams (1859-1931), best known for his animal pictures, is to be offered at The Cotswold Auctions’ specialist picture sale on May 18 in Cirencester.

IT was the five o’clock shadow that gave it away. When London dealer Philip Mould spotted this 18th century portrait in a general paintings sale at the New York auctioneers Thomas Cornell Galleries in November last year, he thought it to be of a rather masculine middle-aged lady.

THE incomparable TEFAF Maastricht opened to the usual streams of visitors at the Maastricht Exhibition and Congress Centre but, unusually for the Dutch fair, an early big ticket sale came for a British picture.

IN what promises to be a massive test of the market for golfiana, Christie’s will auction the world’s most important private collection of golf art and memorabilia on May 30.

KNOCKED down at £19m, Francis Bacon’s Portrait of Henrietta Moraes was the top lot of London’s Contemporary art auction series last week by some margin.