Dorotheum

Always likely to produce one of the sale’s best results, a 1798 first of Thomas Malthus’ 'Essay on the Principle of Population' duly led the bidding in a recent German sale.

Vienna saleroom Dorotheum (28/25/22/18% buyer’s premium) was hoping to send a positive signal for the art market from its latest Old Master sale.

A recent sale at Dorotheum (28/25/22% buyer’s premium) in Vienna was topped by this spectacular diamond and aquamarine tiara-necklace by Cartier London.

Dual time zones watches first came into fashion in France, where they were used to show both ‘time’ in the traditional manner and also Revolutionary time, a short-lived idea based on the decimal system.

Dorotheum (28/25/22/18% buyer’s premium) in Vienna could boast two seven-figure prices in as many days, including the highest Austrian auction price of this year so far.

“There is no such thing as modern art, there is only art and it is perpetual.” The author of these lines was, perhaps surprisingly, the highly modern Austrian painter Egon Schiele and are part of an artistic manifesto written on July 17, 1911.

Jewellery owned by Marie Valerie Hapsburg, the favourite daughter of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, will be auctioned by Dorotheum in Vienna on November 27.

Since 1984, only about 20 paintings by the Turkish artist Osman Hamdi Bey (1842-1910) have come on the auction market and many of his best-known works are in international museums.

In the 1980s, the 3ft 7in x 2ft 9in (1.1m x 85cm) canvas of Saint Bartholomew being offered by Dorotheum in Vienna on April 30 was tentatively ascribed to Caravaggio. The treatment of light and shadow and the extreme naturalism in the portrayal certainly indicate a proximity to the revolutionary artist.

A number of works designed by some of the biggest names in the Wiener Werkstatte association are to be offered in the Jugendstil auction at Dorotheum on December 12. Among them are two brooches designed by Josef Hoffmann.

Winter is putting in an early appearance at Dorotheum in Vienna in the sale of Old Master paintings on October 23 in the shape of a 20in x 2ft 2in (52 x 66cm) oak panel Allegory of Winter, painted by Flemish artist Sebastiaen Vrancx (1573-1647).

Imperial souvenirs, Expressionist portraits and metalware from Augsburg and Iran were among the recent highlights at sales in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

One of Dorotheum’s specialities is its staging of sales devoted to imperial court memorabilia and historical objects, which are notable for featuring souvenirs and personal memorabilia from the House of Hapsburg.

Three tribal art previews of objects being offered at auctions in Paris and Vienna.

A panel front from a cassone will feature in the April 24 sale of Old Master paintings to be held by Dorotheum in Vienna.

The potential star of the show at the sale of Selected Works held by Grisebach (25% buyer’s premium) in Berlin on November 30 lived up to its expectations.

A philosopher of mathematics, the human consciousness and language, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was described by his teacher Bertrand Russell as “the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived”.