Germany

Before he turned to painting cans of soup and Brillo boxes, Andy Warhol had to make a living by more conventional means.

As part of its Modern and Contemporary sales on December 3-4, Grisebach in Berlin is selling the collection of Mário Calábria, who for many decades combined his profession as a Brazilian diplomat with his passion for Modern art.

The Colombian artist Fernando Botero is primarily known for his exaggerated painted portrayals of people, a style that he also applied to his still-lifes and now goes by the name of Boterismo.

In 1964, the Bulgarian artist Christo Javacheff and his wife Jeanne-Claude made a first visit to New York. Soon afterwards they worked on their projects titled Store Fronts, Show Cases and Show Windows.

In the 1620s, Sebastian Vrancx was among the most prominent painters working in Antwerp. He was famed for his landscapes and village scenes, but was also renowned for his often drastically detailed depictions of battles.

Before he started producing his own ceramics in the late 1880s in Paris, at the age of 45, Adrien Dalpayrat had worked as a faïence painter in numerous other factories.

The French clockmaker Antide Janvier, who constructed his first mechanical globe when he was only 15, is primarily famous for his highly complex astronomical clocks and planetaria.

On November 18 Van Ham in Cologne will hold a Decorative Art auction which will include several more items from the collection of Thomas Olbricht.

Although the rise of the internet during the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a number of galleries moving online, many have also decided to persist with their bricks and mortar approach. Here are two businesses building up their physical presence in the face of ongoing uncertainty.

Modern paintings and whole wunderkammer from a closed museum deliver sell-out response

As travel possibilities opened up with the advent of railways and steamships, the question of how to transport belongings became an important one. One of the first manufacturers to tackle this with great success was entrepreneur and designer Louis Vuitton (1821-92).

An October 27-30 sale of more than 2800 lots at Reiss & Sohn of Königstein-im-Taunus includes a 1583 first of Georg Bartisch’s Opthalmodouleia…, a famous work on eye surgery that is also the first extensively illustrated account of any surgical speciality.

The Munich auction house Hermann Historica (25% buyer’s premium) is renowned for its huge multi-catalogue sales series, but on September 25 it mounted a special, selected sale of works of art held at Schloss Greding, south of Nuremburg.

Over the years, Wolf Horst Röhl, who died in 2005, amassed an impressive collection of 17th and 18th century Dutch and German cut glass.

On October 31, Quentin in Berlin is holding its 40th auction. One of the most unusual pieces is this 8in (22cm) high satirical porcelain figure, titled Schmeichelei (Flattery). It was modelled in 1909 by the Slovakian artist Eduard Klabena for KPM in Berlin.

Cologne auction house Lempertz has been trading for 175 years and on November 13 has a special celebratory treat in store for connoisseurs of 18th century furniture.

This portrait of doctor Heinrich Wolff, the stadtphysikus (city physician) in 16th century Nuremberg, is one of the highlights in the sale at Wendl in Rudolstadt on October 22-24.

In 1902, American inventor Frederic Eugene Ives applied for a patent for his Parallax Stereogram.

Among the million-plus visitors to the notorious 'Die Ausstellung Entartete Kunst' organised by the Nazis in 1937 was the painter Karl Kunz (1905-71). He was not there to be disgusted by the excesses of the “modern degenerates”, as was the official intention, but rather to be inspired by the work of his fellow painters.

Mehlis (23% buyer’s premium) in Plauen held its first sale of the new season on August 28-29. There was lively bidding, with a high proportion of the bidders joining in by phone.