Old Masters

Culture minister Margaret Hodge has placed a temporary export ban on Raphael's Head of a Muse after ruling that an attempt should be made to keep the £26m drawing in the UK.

TAKE a beautiful sitter, a leading portraitist, add a touch of glamour and offer with an appetising estimate. Such is the recipe for a riotous bidding feast.

MAJOR American museums played an active role as both buyers and sellers in the latest Old Master sales in New York.

The latest Old Master sales in London underlined the importance for auctioneers of securing the best works by major names.

THE dealer/collector who bought what is now widely thought to be a previously unrecognised work by Leonardo Da Vinci has given ATG details of the events leading up to the revelation.

ATG correspondent SIMON HEWITT gains exclusive access to the evidence used to unveil what the world's leading scholars say is the first major Leonardo Da Vinci find for 100 years.

THE busiest week of the year for Old Masters in London provided further signs that the top end of this market is surviving the downturn better than its modern counterparts.

SLEEPER spotter Philip Mould has unveiled his latest discovery – an early Thomas Gainsborough landscape of Ipswich painted in the mid to late 1740s.

WHILE £50m was finally raised in February to keep the Duke of Sutherland's Titian painting Diana and Actaeon in the UK, an attempt to raise a further £50m by 2012 for the Duke's Diana and Callisto is already underway.

Washington, D.C. auctioneers Sloans & Kenyon found this English period work by the Italian Baroque painter Sebastiano Ricci (1659-1734) in the basement of a local home.

CHRISTIE’S are to replace a wide range of specialist picture sales with a new sale category incorporating 600 years of traditional Western art. The change will be implemented worldwide from May across their salerooms in London, New York, Milan, Paris and Amsterdam.

ST James's gallery Dickinson had one of the most impressive selections of paintings at TEFAF Maastricht and, like many other dealers in Old and Modern Masters, enjoyed a good fair.

TWENTY of London's top art dealers have joined forces with the auction houses to launch Master Paintings Week in London this summer.

IT doesn’t happen very often that either Sotheby’s or Christie’s can claim a major sales victory over their rivals, but at the latest Old Masters series in New York one side came out the clear winners.

Old Masters provided some solace for the London auction rooms last week, posting the solid totals and some eye-catching prices to suggest this most established of markets will ride the downturn better than its modern counterparts.

In a week that saw the London salerooms offering their traditional December round of Old Master pictures, continental furniture and works of art, one of the strongest prices proved to be the £1m (plus premium) paid for this lively and intriguing 3ft (90cm) high bacchic bronze at Sotheby's on December 2.

Colnaghi-Bernheimer of London and Salomon Lilian of Amsterdam have unveiled a rare religious painting by the Dutch 17th century master Frans Hals.

WHETHER or not the art market will be able to steer its way through the current financial storm remains an open question. But providing some relief from the constant talk of falling stocks and the global credit crunch, a pair of Dutch marine pictures saw some strong bidding at the latest picture sale held by Woolley and Wallis on October 8.

TO the connoisseurial mind, it was not the paintings that lit up the Old Master series in London in early July but rather three rediscovered drawings by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) offered in a dedicated Old Master and 19th century works on paper sale at Christie’s on July 8.

A rediscovered painting by Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) was the toast of the Old Master auction series in London last week. Missing for almost 200 years and presumed to have been destroyed, La Surprise was offered at Christie’s evening sale on July 8.