Fine Art

Denys Wilcox of The Court Gallery specialises in British and French art from 1880 to the late 20th century with an emphasis on English Post-Impressionism and the Paris School. He recently published 'The Art of Doris Hatt'.

Spectators at an auction in Zürich were left flabbergasted when a Quattrocento panel painting with a SFr5000-7000 estimate catalogued as ‘in the style of Sandro Botticelli (c.1445-1510)’ was knocked down at SFr6.4m (£5.16m) after an intense 10-minute bidding battle.

A rare copy of the earliest-known depiction of a book auction emerged for sale in Gloucestershire at the end of last month.

A black and white chalk on paper drawing of Jupiter and Antiope by Johan Zoffany (1733-1810) was among the highlight sales during London Art Week (LAW).

The 52-lot auction of furniture, paintings and works of art collected by members of the Rothschild family was among the most animated during a packed week of London showpiece sales.

After a bullish 2018 for the major Modern British art sales in London – during which Christie’s posted its strongest evening sale to date – results from the first ‘Mod Brit’ series of 2019 looked a little flat by comparison.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

In what could well be a first, all 10 of Christie’s top evening sale lots on June 17 were sculptures. The group comprised the works of four blue-chip sculptors – Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Elisabeth Frink and Barry Flanagan – and contributed much of the overall total at £11.3m.

A Cricket Match (1938) by Mod Brit giant LS Lowry (1887-1976) was the fitting headliner at Sotheby’s. Offered in the midst of the Cricket World Cup, the 18in x 2ft (46 x 61cm) oil on canvas showing a back-street match played by local children in Salford sold for a mid-estimate £950,000 to a UK private buyer.

Much of the pre-sale publicity from Bonhams’ June 15 Mod Brit focused on Eric Gill’s (1882-1942) Girl with a Comb in her Hair (1928) – a market-fresh carved head and torso valued at £200,000-300,000 and admired for its unusual pose and luxuriant wavy hair.

Works produced in the 1940s by Al Hirschfeld figured prominently among the higher priced lots at a June 4 Illustration Art sale held in New York.

Abbott and Holder offers this 1940 oil on canvas of Regents Canal, Paddington, as part of a large, single-owner collection on offer in the Bloomsbury gallery.

'La Biennale Paris' and 'Parcours des Mondes' bring the dealing scene in the French capital back to life after summer slumbers, while auction houses also rise to the occasion. We take an early glimpse at what will be on offer for the visitor in September.

The painting dubbed the ‘Toulouse Caravaggio’ that was snubbed by the Louvre in Paris could now go on show in a museum after a private sale.

A study for the mysterious painting 'Allegory' by Thomas Monnington (1902-76) features in Liss Llewellyn’s exhibition of religious art in 20th century Britain. It shows a nude man and woman before a tree, an overt visual reference to Adam and Eve, but one which the artist denied.