Cambridge

There is little like a new house-record to leave an auctioneer smiling but there was considerably more for Luke Macdonald to celebrate following Cheffins’ (22.5% buyer’s premium) spring sale.

British portraiture with pedigree provided plenty of action in a strong sale of pictures at Cheffins (22.5% buyer’s premium) of Cambridge.

Led by the portrait of an Italian mastiff by il Guercino (1591-1666), dogs took a starring role in the Cheffins' March 8 sale. The delightful oil of a stocky ‘Cane Corso’, perhaps the artist’s own dog, overshot a £80,000-120,000 estimate and was knocked down at £570,000 – the highest auction price in the English regions so far this year.

Magazine by ‘heathen staff’ sells for 10-times top estimate in the city where it was produced...

The run of recent six-figure auction sums in the English regions now includes Cheffins posting a house record in Cambridge.

A dazzling red and black herringbone-patterned Conklin Nozac cushion point pen and pencil set dating from 1932 and with an ability to write 7000 words before running out, is for sale at the Eastern Pen Show on March 4.

As celebrations get under way to mark the centenary of women gaining the right to vote (or over-30s at least), the Modern British art market is showing a growing appetite for 20th century female artists.

A previously unrecorded painting attributed to Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, the Italian Old Master known as il Guercino (1591-1666), has been consigned to Cambridge auction house Cheffins.

Earlier works in an October 18 sale held by Cheffins (22.5% buyer’s premium) included a scarce 1688 first of Randle Holme’s The Academy of Armory, or a Storehouse of Armory and Blazon, an heraldic work by the third member of a distinguished Chester family of heraldic painters and genealogists to bear that name. It made £1200.

Overshadowed by the £130,000 Giacometti double-sided sketch (ATG No 2314), other pieces at Cheffins’ (23% buyer’s premium) sale at Cambridge on October 12 flourished under the banner of post-1880 design.

A double-sided drawing by Alberto Giacometti of his classic elongated head and figure designs has been sold at auction in Cambridge for £130,000.

“There really does seem to be life in the traditional market”. Woolley & Wallis’ (22% buyer’s premium) latest Old Masters, British & European Paintings sale in Salisbury left specialist Victor Fauvelle in a buoyant mood.

“Many think that the fashion for older mahogany furniture has died a death. However, the prices achieved at this sale go to show that these items are still incredibly desirable.”

Cambridge Fine Art’s Nicholas Lury is an exhibitor at the upcoming Esher Hall Antiques & Fine Art Fair (October 7-9). He specialises in British paintings from the Victorian era and is based in Little Shelford.

A blaze which tore through Norwich Central Library one August morning in 1994 destroyed thousands of historic documents and more than 100,000 books.