Fine Art

“Modern British sculpture is making extremely good money at the moment – it is a market moving as quickly, if not slightly quicker, than paintings.” So said Philip Smith, department head of Mallams (20% buyer’s premium).

The potential star of the show at the sale of Selected Works held by Grisebach (25% buyer’s premium) in Berlin on November 30 lived up to its expectations.

The market for works by Ernst Wilhelm Nay (1902-68) was pushed into a new dimension at recent German auctions.

A market-fresh figure study by Mod Brit giant LS Lowry (1887-1976), pictured below, topped the sale at Woolley & Wallis.

Multi-million buys may be out of reach but five-figure quality is on offer at top London gallery Richard Green.

It may be strange and surreal, but John Spencer-Churchill’s (1909-92) landscape panorama of the evacuation of Dunkirk is the only depiction of the event known to have been painted by an eyewitness.

The photographic archive of Emile Zola (1840-1902) was offered by Artcurial (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on December 4 with over 90% of the 75 lots changing hands.

The famous photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson are no strangers to salerooms but it is not every day that you find 120 lots being offered from a single-owner collection.

Haute Epoque, the French term given to early, largely pre-Renaissance, works of art, especially sculpture, featured in several Parisian sales in the winter high season.

Helen Sutcliffe runs the premises of Sutcliffe Galleries in Harrogate. The family-run business has been trading for more than six decades and specialises in paintings from the 18th century to the present day.

Strong competition emerged for an oil sketch for Eugène Delacroix’s 'Liberty Leading the People' at Christie’s in London on December 14.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi set the highest price ever for an artwork sold at auction when it took $400m ($450m with premium) at Christie’s New York on November 15.