Fine Art

A country house library in south-west Scotland was the source of an album of 19th century photographs of India that provided a Valentine’s Day surprise at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh.

This oil painting of the RMS Queen Mary, below, by marine painter William McDowell (1888-1950) was taken to a multi-estimate £12,000 at Surrey saleroom John Nicholson’s (24% buyer’s premium).

Chiswick Auctions (25/12% buyer’s premium) has held its first dedicated Old Masters sale, capitalising on the void left by Christie’s South Kensington’s closure last year.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships

An oil on canvas by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (Seville, 1617-82) which has recently been examined and published by Dr Benito Navarrate Prieto, and incorporated into the body of Murillo’s work, is a highlight of the next paintings auction at Ansorena, Madrid, on March 6-8.

Experimental work by the Czech Expressionist Ernest Neuschul (1895-1968) chimed with current tastes in a sell-out studio sale in Somerset.

Private material sourced from old estates helped Gloucestershire saleroom Chorley’s (20% buyer’s premium) get the year off to a positive start.

A view of coastal Mexico was knocked down at £280,000 at Bonhams’ latest Travel and Exploration sale in Knightsbridge – a record price at auction for British topographical painter Daniel Egerton (1797-1842).

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham described making her late work, a colourful and energetic collection, as ‘letting rip’.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Their backgrounds might have made them strange bedfellows: Edgar Degas (1834-1917), the lawyer turned publicity-shy painter and printmaker, and Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), the sculptor from a working-class background who achieved fame with his large, often controversial works.

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 bustling scene of Leicester Square by genre painter Edward Prentis (1797-1854) took £6800 at David Lay (18% buyer’s premium) of Penzance.

This painting of a fire in north London drew heated bidding when it went under the hammer at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (21% buyer’s premium).

Old Master specialist Derek Johns became a director of Sotheby’s in 1968 and head of its Old Master paintings department in 1974. He became an independent art dealer in 1981. He now deals from Bury Street after many years on Duke Street.