Fine Art

IT may sound a little gimmicky, but one of the most captivating TEFAF exhibits this year was an animated version of Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder’s Vase With Flowers in a Window by the contemporary artists Rob and Nick Carter on the stand of London’s Fine Art Society.

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.

THE first sale at new premises for Ipswich auctioneers Lockdales, now at the former officers’ barracks in Martlesham Heath, included two pieces of silver and enamel ware of the type associated with the Solvychegodsk region.

David Hockney (b.1937) and the late Lucian Freud (1922-2011) have captured the public imagination at the moment.

THE recovery of more than 400 lost works by Dutch artist Karel Appel has led to a call for storage companies to tighten their due diligence on objects they handle.

THE term ‘masterpiece’ is all too commonplace in auctioneering hyperbole, but just occasionally it rings true.

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.

This signed William Scott (1913-89) lithograph of Mousehole harbour in Cornwall was spotted during a furniture valuation before being entered into Chorley’s latest sale in Prinknash Abbey Park, Gloucestershire.

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.

PRICES for Henry Moore (1898-1986) have been rising consistently in recent years, but the performance of this large-scale bronze sculpture at auction last week dramatically lifted the artist to previously unseen levels.

REPORTS have emerged that the Qatari Royal family has paid a record amount for any work of art ever sold.

THIS alabaster sculpture by Barbara Hepworth (1903-75), entitled Two Rotating Forms II and dated to 1966, began the new year in style for Sworders.

THE strong competition that emerged for some of the most exciting pictures at the latest Old Master sales in London helped lift the series and compensated for the lack of interest at lower levels.

SOTHEBY’S are to change the format of their sculpture works of art sales in London.

A new auction record for a medieval work of art was established at Christie's Paris

COMPETITION between major collectors and new players in the market for L.S. Lowry saw a host of dramatic prices in London last week as Christie's offered 14 works from the collection of the late hotel magnate Lord Forte.

A SERIES of key consignments at the latest Contemporary art auctions helped lift the mood of the art market in New York.

THE latest Impressionist & Modern art auctions in New York finished much better than they started.

SETTING a house record at Cotswolds saleroom Tayler & Fletcher and helping them to their highest ever sale total, this small and previously unrecorded portrait by Anders Zorn (1860-1920), fetched £82,000 in Cheltenham.

WHILE most reports in the media focused on the record price paid for a pair of Queen Victoria's undergarments, Lyon & Turnbull's sale of works from the Forbes Collection raised the more serious question of the current state of the Victorian art market.