France

Did the final days of 2018 provide the year’s greatest discovery? Bidders who pursued a bronze dragon head from €20,000 to €2.4m (£2.2m) at the Drouot in Paris on December 17 certainly thought so.

Featuring 17 lithographed illustrations by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, one of 100 special copies of Gustave Geoffroy’s 1894 homage to the celebrated singer, actress and, in later years, writer, Yvette Guilbert – all of which were signed by the chanteuse – is shown here.

Selection of contents from landmark French inter-war modernist building resurface after 1985 dispersal.

The second stock sale from the French ceramics specialist Christophe Perlès was held at Drouot by Pescheteau-Badin (26% buyer’s premium inc VAT) on November 26.

Star turn in a sale held in the French city of Angers on December 5 was this small painting by the 17th century French artist Jacques Stella (1596-1657), below.

When this Monet maritime sunset below was hammered down for €860,000 (£767,860) – or €1.18m/£1.05m including premium – in Millon’s (25% buyer’s premium) sale of Modern Art on November 26 it not only overturned its €80,000-100,000 estimate but also achieved the second highest result at auction for a pastel by the famous French Impressionist.

Written just a year before his death in 1955, a famous two-page letter in which Albert Einstein put down his thoughts on religion, his Jewish identity and his own search for the meaning of life sold for $2.4m (£1.89m) in a New York auction on December 4.

A trip to France before Christmas to buy unusual gifts is always a good plan. Here are three antiques and vintage brocantes to visit: two well-known weeklies in Paris and a biannual event in Bordeaux.

December is one of two key periods in the French calendar when the auction houses concentrate their sales of Asian art. Pictured here is a selection of highlights and unusual pieces coming up for sale this month in the Paris rooms.

It is the quirky designs of husband-and-wife team François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne that populate the top echelons of so much French design in the salerooms these days.

The French dealer François Laffanour, whose Galerie Downtown is on the rue de Seine in Paris, has specialised for 25 years in furnishings by post-war architects and designers.

Italy, like many European countries whose economies were ravaged during the war, had to face the challenge of picking itself up and starting afresh once hostilities were over.

Of all the types of playful drinking cups or trinkspiel made by Dutch and German goldsmiths during the 16th and 17th centuries, the example offered by Sotheby’s in Paris last week was surely the most elaborate.

Artcurial has made something of a habit of offering parts of the Eiffel Tower, pieces that were removed as part of periodic restorations of the famous landmark on the Paris skyline.

Art Richelieu Castor-Hara is offering a single-owner French collection featuring Old Masters and modern paintings, and classic furniture in a sale at Drouot.