International

Two American presentation swords, marking high points in two very different military careers, made their mark in recent sales.

Cased pairs of pistols remain a particular favourite with collectors, being relatively compact and often in excellent condition after centuries cocooned in their brass-bound mahogany boxes.

Decamping from the Big Smoke of London to the sunny beaches of a Caribbean island might sound like a happy daydream or at best, a holiday. But for Old Master specialist Theo Johns, relocating to the Dominican Republic represents a business strategy as well as a life change.

Russ Withem has joined Morphy Auctions as a firearms expert in the company’s firearms and militaria division.

The summer season brought a raft of modern art sales to continental Europe and the various salerooms around Germany were no exception.

The unexpected highlight of a recent sale at Beurret & Bailly (20% buyer’s premium) in Basel was a work by the Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931) which had been considered lost for over a century.

Austrian artists figured prominently at the June 20-21 sale at Kinsky (26% buyer’s premium) in Vienna.

Isle sur La Sorgue, near Avignon, is one of the most ravishing towns in Provence.

The biggest sensation at Scheublein (26% buyer’s premium) in Munich on June 30 was caused by an oil painting of American Indians from the mid-19th century. It was an oil study for a famous painting by Carl Ferdinand Wimar (1828-62), who also went by the name of Charles Wimar.

For many years auctioneers have been itching to move the finest arms and armour from the province of the specialist collector and establish them with a wider audience as works of art in their own right.

Sold for €62,500 (£54,825) by German auction house Kiefer (20% buyer’s premium) in a June 30-July 1 sale in Pforzheim was an 1867, Hamburg first edition of the first volume of Karl Marx’s 'Das Kapital'.