Fine Art

The bird with the splendid hairdo pictured right is one of five original watercolours, possibly by Madam Knip herself, found in a special copy of Temminck & Knip’s Histoire naturelle des Pigeons of 1801-11 that sold for £30,000 to a private buyer at Christie’s November 28 sale.

Rembrandt the Printmaker by Erik Hinterding, Ger Luijten and Martin Royalton, published by the British Museum Press in association with the Rijksmuseum ISBN 01714126268 £29.99 pb

THE Glasgow Boys school of painters will be the subject of the inaugural exhibition at the Fleming Collection at 13 Berkeley Street, London W1 at the end of this month.

Modern British in date, but blissfully unaffected by Fauvism, Cubism, Vorticism and just about every other ‘ism’ that was changing the face of Western art, Edgar Hunt (1876-1953) enjoys perennial popularity among picture buyers with more traditional tastes.

She lived by her pen, but died by her brush. If Charlotte Brontë had been remotely skilled as a portrait artist she might not have turned to literary characterisations.

THE Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is to be the new home for Federico Barocci’s £1.3m drawing Study for The Institution of the Eucharist.

Dealers often complain about the way that private bidders get over-excited at auctions and pay ridiculously inflated prices they wouldn’t dream of giving in a gallery. But for once it looks - or rather looked – as if a major player in the trade had suffered a serious attack of auction fever following Jermyn Street agent Guy Morrison’s terse admission that he was now the happy owner of £9.4m Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) portrait.

KONRAD Bernheimer, the Munich and London-based Old Master Paintings dealer has confirmed that he is to acquire Colnaghi, the Old Master paintings and drawings dealership. The gallery will continue to operate under the Colnaghi name from the existing gallery at 15 Old Bond Street, London.

Light sculpture is what noted potter Margaret O’Rorke calls her distinctive and novel work, which is on exhibition until December 21 at Galerie Besson, 15 Royal Arcade off Old Bond Street, London W1.

A DEALER in antique prints has complained to eBay that the promotion of reproduction prints in the antiques category is slowly destroying the online market for originals.

“There was a certain amount of watching. People were there to see what was happening, which was why it was slightly less active than last year, particularly for the nice, but less fashionable 19th century watercolours.”

A new world auction record for Sir Joshua Reynolds was achieved at Sotheby’s on November 29 when the oil on canvas Portrait of Omai sold for £9,400,500 (plus 20/15/10 per cent buyer’s premium).

One of the advantages of being an auction house with offices and salerooms spread around the country is that items with regional associations can be sold in the areas with the relevant local interest. This is precisely what happened on November 8 when the signed Louise Rayner (1832-1924) watercolour that had originally been consigned to Phillips Bath came up for sale 120 miles and one corporate take-over away at Bonhams Chester (15/10% buyer’s premium).

Vermeer’s Camera: Uncovering the Truth Behind the Masterpieces by Philip Steadman, published by the Oxford University Press. ISBN 019215967 £17.99hb

PORTRAIT miniatures are one field that has been performing strongly in recent seasons, an area of the market where the private buyer is very much in evidence.

USA: Mixed signals emerged from New York’s crucial November round of Part I Impressionist and Modern sales, the most significant test of the international art market since September 11.

ARTS Minister Tessa Blackstone has placed a temporary bar on the export of an important drawing, Study for the Institution of the Eucharist, by Federico Barocci (1528-1612).

USA: Swann Galleries will hold their inaugural auction of Contemporary Art on the evening of Tuesday, November 13 at their 104 East 25th Street New York premises. The sale comprises about 170 examples of photo-based artworks, paintings, prints and drawings as well as mixed media pieces and multiples by late 20th century artists.

THIS year’s annual International Fine Print Dealers Association Print Fair, scheduled for October 31 to November 4, has been cancelled with the forced closure of the Seventh Regiment Armory to non-military activities.