Oil painting

A rare painting by Richard Parkes Bonington (1802-1828) that had hung in the Prime Minister’s residence at 10, Downing Street for nine years led Christie’s evening sale of Old Master & British paintings in London.

Six paintings consigned to Gorringes of Lewes, East Sussex, have been returned to the Amsterdam Museum after being identified as those stolen from the Dutch institution over 40 years ago.

An oil on panel by Franz Sedlacek (1891-1945), an Austrian artist prominent in the Vienna Secession group of painters, drew international bidding at Toovey’s of Washington, West Sussex.

Christie’s has agreed to withdraw seven pictures, including two by Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, from its July 9 and 10 sales after owners the Alfred Beit Foundation asked to postpone their sale.

In the 1984 book ‘The Late Paintings and Drawings of John Constable’ by Graham Reynolds, a pencil drawing of the back and shoulders of the artist’s wife Mrs Maria Constable (nee Bicknell) is described as ‘whereabouts unknown’.

This still life by Dutch artist Cornelis de Heem (1631-95) has been returned to its historical home, The National Trust’s Dyrham Park in Gloucestershire. The painting was bought through London dealer Johnny Van Haeften for £574,000.

An oil on panel by Franz Sedlacek (1891-1945), one of Austria’s most prominent artists during the 1920s and ‘30s, will be offered in West Sussex auctioneers Toovey’s sale.

The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has launched a public campaign to raise the funds needed to secure JMW Turner's The High Street, Oxford.

Mark Rothko’s 'Untitled (Yellow and Blue)' led Sotheby’s sale of Contemporary art in New York last night.

A new high for any work of art sold at auction came at Christie’s New York last night as Pablo Picasso’s ‘Les femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’)’ sold at $160m (£108.1m).

Old Master paintings rarely take centre stage over Modern, Impressionist or Contemporary art these days. Yet this most traditional of collecting disciplines remains the soul of TEFAF Maastricht, the umbilical cord to its genesis as the Pictura fair.

Five works by Claude Monet helped Sotheby’s set a new high for a London auction of Impressionist, Modern and Surrealist art last night.

This version of John Constable’s (1776-1837) celebrated painting ‘Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows’ sold for $4.5m (£3.1m) at Sotheby’s Old Master sale in New York yesterday. It was an oil sketch with quite a backstory.

The buyer of £25.5m worth of artworks left on a train in Italy faces a legal claim from the heir of the man from whom they were stolen in 1970.

As part of Old Master Week in New York, Sotheby’s will sell paintings assembled by J.E. Safra on January 29.

Personal effects of Sir Winston Churchill, including the morocco dispatch box pictured here, were among the highlights of Sotheby’s highly publicised estate sale of his youngest child, the late Mary Soames.

The outstanding lot of the latest Old Master auction series in London, ‘Rome, from Mount Aventine’ by J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), was knocked down at £27m at Sotheby’s evening sale, setting a record price for the artist.

New York has witnessed some spectacular auction prices of late and another came last week as ‘Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1’ by Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) was knocked down at $39.5m (£26.3m) at Sotheby’s American art sale.

The opening salvos have been fired in the court case centred on the version of Caravaggio’s ‘The Card Sharps’ which sold at Sotheby’s in 2006.

Paintings and objects from the estate of the late Mary Soames, the youngest daughter of Sir Winston Churchill, are to be sold at Sotheby’s in London.