Auctions

The first ‘Thumb Bibles’, paraphrased or abridged versions of the good book, were published in the early 17th century – the London printer John Weever offering his 128- page An Agnus Dei, measuring just over 1in, in 1601.

Two quite different pieces of glass designed by Dino Martens (1894-1970) led the April 23 sale at Aste di Antiquariato Boetto (25% buyer’s premium) in Genoa.

Our selection of lots from nine upcoming auctions

The sale at Hargesheimer (28% buyer’s premium) on April 18 included an outstanding Russian icon and oklad by Orest Kurlyukov.

A highlight of Apollo Art Auctions’ (20% buyer’s premium) April 27-28 sale was a trio of Egyptian sandstone reliefs from the Amarna period, the 17-year reign of the radical pharaoh Amenhotep IV known as Akhenaten.

A selection of stand-out lots coming up at a variety of auctions

Current collecting taste means that Old Master paintings exploring the darker side of the human character can often find more admirers than more typical subject matter of Georgian gentleman or European landscapes. Works of the grotesque are particularly popular.

A collection of Nelson commemoratives amassed over 30 years includes pieces once owned by the man himself

A classic of the large blue and white forms of Yuan dynasty porcelain comes to auction in Spain

When James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) arrived in Paris in 1855 determined to pursue a career as an artist, printmaking was experiencing a revival.

For over a century, the whereabouts of the painting Tanz im Varieté (Steptanz) (Vaudeville Dance/Tap Dance) by the Expressionist Ernst Ludig Kirchner were unknown.