International

Ken Hose, who has published three books on Australian clockmakers, has been fascinated by clocks and their mechanics since he was a teenager.

John Magnier, the Irish horse breeder and art collector, reportedly made a five-fold return on his Amadeo Modigliani reclining nude when it sold at Sotheby’s New York last month for $139m (£102.2m).

Shown below is one of 20 hand-coloured plates from 'Masken des Römischen Carnevals'. This was a rare and separate 1790 Weimar issue of the plates that illustrated a work by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on Roman carnivals published the previous year – an item that is itself a great rarity*.

Though their output was dwarfed by their male counterparts, talented 20th century Irish female artists pack a punch in the saleroom when their art does appear at auction.

Bid to a record €18,000 (£15,660) in a May 15-17 series of sales held by Reiss & Sohn (18% buyer’s pemium) of Königstein, near Frankfurt, was a first edition of Immanuel Kant’s 'Critik der reinen Vernunft'.

Demands for ‘looted’ items to be returned could be ‘disastrous’ for the dealers, say antiquities trade bodies...

London dealer Daniel Katz has sold two bronze sculptures to the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, one by Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) and the other by Rodin’s assistant, model and lover Camille Claudel (1864-1943).

A rare late 16th century astronomical horizontal dial, dated MDXCI (1591) and engraved with the arms and name of Pope Clement VIII, is one of the highlights of the sale series to be held by Uppsala AuktionsKammare from June 13-15.

This canvas of the martyrdom of St Sebastian by the Italian Baroque artist Mattia Preti (1613-99) is closely related to one of his most famous works of the same subject, in the Capodimonte Museum in Naples.

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.

The antiques trade might have a darker side but there is also a certain black humour to it all.

One of the better reflections of the art world’s global reach is the tribal art market. No longer the preserve of a handful of aficionados or avant-garde early 20th century artists, the artefacts of non-European cultures are now the subject of worldwide interest and appreciation.

An ink and watercolour drawing from one of Hergé’s finest works achieved a stand-out result at a recent auction in France.