Germany

A mix of surprising and more predictable results emerged in the first round of Old Master auctions in Germany and Austria this autumn.

Among the many hundreds of services manufactured in Meissen, the Schwanenservice (Swan Service) is one of the most exclusive – a fact not lost on today’s collectors of 18th century German porcelain.

The impact of the controversial 2016 cultural heritage bill has moved up the political agenda in Germany in the wake of the country’s recent elections.

Dating from 1812, this pair of terrestrial and celestial library globes of 12in (31cm) diameter was made by the well-known London firm of John & William Cary.

ATG picks out a selection of highlights from upcoming auctions in Munich.

The Bavarian capital city of Munich is an ever-expanding centre of prosperity, home to the carmaker BMW, leading insurers and major industrial concerns as well as numerous IT businesses.

October is Munich is a busy time for art and antiques with two major fairs running concurrently in the city. ATG looks at what will be in store for visitors.

The first round of Munich auctions took place at the end of September and produced several notable results for paintings and sculpture. They include a rare appearance at the rostrum for a work by a Greek artist who studied in the Bavarian capital and a 19th century Orientalist subject painted in Rome by a German artist shortly after a return journey from Greece.

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

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.

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'.

Bavaria is the most popular tourist destination in Germany and for more than 20 years the historic city of Bamberg has hosted a summer event in which a dozen prestigious dealers and galleries take part in a joint sales exhibition, held in their own premises.

Dealers in and collectors of Asian art were spoilt for choice around the middle of June in Europe. As well as the Asian sale series in Paris (see last week’s ATG, No 2300), a vast selection of works came up for sale in Zurich, Cologne, Brussels, Salzburg and Stuttgart.

The island of St Helena featured in a folding plate from a 1598, first English edition of Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s famous Itinerario – published as Discours of Voyages into ye Easte & West Indies – offered by Ketterer Kunst (20% buyer’s premium) on May 22.

Art books in a Ketterer Kunst (20% buyer’s premium) sale of May 22 included one of 15 deluxe copies of a 1950 edition of Harry Roskolenko’s Paris Poems, containing an original watercolour by Zau Wou-Ki and an extra suite of his lithographed illustrations. It sold at €42,000 (£36,240).

This rather unsettling woodcut illustration shown above, an almost surreal depiction of an amputation, is taken from from a 1515, Grüninger of Strasbourg edition of Hieronymous Brunschwig’s Das buch der wund Artzeny. Handwirkung der Cirurgia.

Featuring more than 70 decorative or historiated initials in full contemporary colour, a fine copy of a Biblia germanica printed by Gunther Zainer of Augsburg in 1475-76 sold for a record €120,000 (£103,450) in a Ketterer Kunst (20% buyer’s premium) sale.