Art Market

August is the month when Scotland takes it up a notch while the rest of the art world has a breather.

A little-known Jacob Epstein (1880-1959) sculpture of the British actress Sandra Dorne took an estimate-topping £11,000 at HRD Auction Rooms (20% buyer’s premium) on the Isle of Wight.

Just a month after the Second World War, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was in Paris working at the lithography workshop of Fernand Mourlot (1895-1988). It was the beginning of a collaboration that would last almost three decades and produce more than 400 different graphic images and editions.

An Indian School work guided at £100-150 was the star turn at Greenslade Taylor Hunt (19.5% buyer’s premium) of Taunton in Somerset on August 2.

Three modestly valued works in regional sales, sold for under £900.

An intriguing portrait by an unidentified hand of a Royal Navy admiral in a wig and blue gilt braided uniform was a star entry at Cotswold saleroom Chorley’s (20/15/12.5/10% buyer’s premium).

This watercolour, below, by Frederic Whiting (1874-1962) took a multi-estimate £2500 at Thomson Roddick’s (15% buyer’s premium) Edinburgh saleroom on August 9.

The setting for this near-monochrome self-portrait, below, by Walter Sickert (1860-1942) is the Campo SS Giovanni e Paolo in Venice and shows the equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni and the Scuola Grande di San Marco.

This Old Master painting, above, of The Adoration of the Magi in the manner of Italian painter Vincenzo Carducci (c.1576-1638) led a recent Dorset sale.

Selling above estimate at Jacobs & Hunt (22% buyer’s premium) in Liss, Hampshire, was a life-size bronze by Sydney Harpley (1927-92) titled Umbrella Girl, below.

Unseen on the market since 1946, a view of Sloane Square (below) by Robert Buhler (1916-89) raced to £5000 at Ewbank’s (22.5% buyer’s premium).

A selection of three works from UK regional salerooms sold for £1000 or under.

Pre-Raphaelite artist shunned and persecuted in his time is now a popular auction choice.

This small scene by Scottish genre painter Thomas Faed (1826-1900) shown below sold for a quadruple-estimate £8500 at Brightwells (22% buyer’s premium).

Spurred on by Middle Eastern demand, Orientalist art came out top at Christie’s 19th century European & Orientalist Art auction in London.

Works by the Pre-Raphaelites and their followers continued to outperform the rest of the Victorian art market during the latest round of sales in London. Topping the auctions at both Sotheby’s and Christie’s were two ‘jeune fille fatale’ creations by Pre-Raphaelite latecomer, John William Waterhouse (1849-1917).

From 1936-45, St Ives artist John Wells (1907-2000) embarked on a series of labour-intensive creations while working as a GP on the Isles of Scilly.

A sale of books, maps and ephemera at Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium) included more than £17,000 worth of 19th and 20th century watercolours and drawings from the stock of a dealer.

Two depictions of the Madonna painted some 400 years apart were among the highlights of a dedicated sale of pictures at Dreweatts (24% buyer’s premium) in Donnington Priory in Berkshire.

Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) of Leyburn claimed a new auction record for Bertram Priestman (1868-1951) when it sold a painting of an extensive river landscape by the local artist.