Art Market

A clutch of 19th and 20th century marine and maritime pictures attracted competitive bidding in summer sales held at three auction houses in southern England.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales at £2000 or under, including Bonnie Prince Charlie portrait.

One of the highest prices for Albert Chevallier Tayler (1862-1925) at a UK auction in the last 10 years was achieved at Roseberys’ (25% buyer’s premium) latest picture sale when a late Victorian ‘period’ scene attracted multiple bidders.

Mid-20th century animal study contrasts with traditional ornithological work in same auction.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales at £700 or under, including social history scenes.

Drawing keen interest at Hansons (20% buyer’s premium) in Derbyshire last month was a work by Belgian painter Francois Joseph Navez (1787-1869), an artist who rarely appears in the UK salerooms.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales at £750 or under, including an oil by designer known more for Arts & Crafts jewellery and furniture.

One notable consequence of the growing prevalence of charity shops on the high street is that auctioneers are receiving more and more items that these organisations want to check in case they are valuable.

Somerset auction shows how bidders are very sensitive to how works are estimated.

Landscape painter Sidney Richard Percy (1821-86) is described in Christopher Wood’s Dictionary of Victorian Painters as “a prolific and variable painter, and his prices vary accordingly”.

While the vast majority of works at Old Master sales are by European artists, an unusual offering at Bonhams’ sale on July 3 was a Latin American work by a painter with Afro-Caribbean ancestry.

Christie’s highest price for an Old Master this summer came in the stand-alone Masterpieces from a Rothschild Collection sale on July 4.

It may be a well-rehearsed refrain, but the Old Master market is much more subject to vagaries of supply than demand. Almost without fail, when high-quality fresh material is offered, bidders will come. Just getting it in the first place is the hard part.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales at £1500 or under, including a watercolour by a designer better known for Arts & Crafts jewellery.

Eanger Irving Couse oil painting of Native American is his first work to be offered in a British saleroom.

In a relatively short period from 1959-64, the Spanish-Italian Realist Xavier Bueno (1915-79) created his most recognisable works: a series of melancholic and haunting portraits of children. For Bueno these ‘Bambini’ portraits symbolised a “humiliated and oppressed humanity”.

The Flemish post-Impressionist Emile Claus (1849-1924) embraced the prevailing taste for plein-air painting when he moved to the village of Astene by the river Lys in 1883.

This rare American scene by noted railway painter Terence Cuneo (1907-96) turned up at Canterbury Auction Galleries (20% buyer’s premium) in Kent.

A large canvas by the Taiwan-born British minimalist Richard Lin (1933-2011) sailed to £84,000 at Ludlow saleroom McCartneys (17% buyer’s premium), setting a house record in the process.