Fine Art

AN historic and important medieval scientific instrument, known as the Canterbury Quadrant, has been saved for the nation. St James’s specialist dealers Trevor Philip and Sons have sold the quadrant to the British Museum for £411,250.

The latest addition to the London street art calendar took place at Village Underground in Shoreditch on June 17, where Dreweatts became the first auctioneer from outside London to host a dedicated Urban Art Sale.

THE man regarded as the world’s leading authority on Rembrandt has declared the self portrait that sold at auction in the Cotswolds for £2.2m last October as a genuine work by the Dutch master.

Christie’s English furniture day on June 18 was marked by the £9m auction of a dozen pieces of top-flight examples and by the 369-lot £13.6m sale of the collection of the late Simon Sainsbury.

AN influx of Russian buyers was in town last week to flex their wallets and work their way through a week-long series of Russian sales in four London rooms. On offer was a rich mix of paintings, Fabergé, arms and armour, porcelain, metalware and anything else the auction houses thought might tempt the Russian palate.

TWO very different scenes of cricket matches in progress sold recently at very different locations. The artists themselves could also hardly be more contrasting: Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) and L.S. Lowry (1887-1976).

Yet another example of a British auction house benefiting from the craze for all things Russian was seen at Welsh auctioneers Rogers Jones of Colwyn Bay on May 27, when international interest clamoured for this Russian plate.

THE gargantuan sums of money being spent at the top end of the contemporary art market continued unabated as the latest sales series in New York saw a staggering overall premium-inclusive total of $990m.

Dreweatts have secured a preview for their forthcoming Urban Art sale at Selfridges.

Fears that New York’s flagship May sales might usher in a market meltdown were allayed last week as Sotheby’s and Christie’s posted solid results for Impressionist and Modern art.

Photo from 1866 rescued from the attic sells in Nottingham...

Two auctioneers, two Gérôme sculptures, but two very different estimates

There was high drama at Christie's latest decorative arts sale in London, when half the £3.1m total came from this Glasgow school panel by Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, which sold to an American collector for £1.5m (plus premium).

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.