Fine Art

The latest Old Master auctions in London gave encouragement to the sector as keen competition came for a noticeably higher number of works pitched at relatively attractive levels.

Wiltshire auction house Henry Aldridge & Son (17.5% buyer’s premium) has established a reputation for Titanic memorabilia thanks to two specialist sales a year. Thanks to a lot sold in the November 11 auction, the Devizes firm also has a handy sideline in early photographs of Tibet.

Sporting and ornithological art collected over half a century by the Astor family will be offered in a single-owner sale during Christie’s ‘Classic Week’.

Modern British art by blue-chip names drove demand during the week-long series of November sales in London.

This enamel copy of Hans Holbein’s Whitehall mural portrait is by William Bone Senior (1792-1846) – second-generation member of the Bone dynasty of miniaturists and enamellists.

Despite its current high profile, commercial interest in Soviet-era art remains selective. With the centenary of the Russian Revolution and anniversary exhibitions at the Royal Academy and Tate Modern, the latest series of Russian sales in London had aimed to cash in on the focus on this sector.

A collection of paintings on show at contemporary art gallery Daniel Raphael offers a glimpse into the life of a well-known dealer.

During the 1950s a revival in UK printmaking took root. As dedicated print studios were set up, etching, lithography and screenprinting flourished, and in the 1960s, as critics celebrated the ‘rebirth’ of the print, Marlborough Fine Art entered the print publishing market.

A red and black chalk portrait of a Renaissance French prince soared to a multi-estimate price of €810,000 (£736,365) when it went under the hammer in Monaco last month.

For its 'London Art Week Winter' exhibition, The Weiss Gallery pairs historic painting with contemporary accessories and miniatures.

Plaudits were deserved in Paris on November 27 for Camille Claudel (1864-1943) when Artcurial’s (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) dedicated sale of 20 of the sculptor’s works were offered direct from her family.

Tom Edwards is director of Abbott and Holder, a picture dealer and conservator established in 1936. The gallery is in London’s Museum Street across from the British Museum, and specialises in British watercolours, drawings, prints and oil paintings.

Selling the contents of historic estates, especially those in the same family for several generations, will often throw up surprises.

A philosopher of mathematics, the human consciousness and language, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was described by his teacher Bertrand Russell as “the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived”.