Fine Art

“THE high point of my career,” was how auctioneer John Anderson described his most recent sale. He had waited 30 years but finally got the chance to offer the Lionel Jacobson collection at Anderson & Garland on March 11-13.

It’s not just the London salerooms that are benefiting from the renewed enthusiasm for Russian works of art. The highlight of the sale conducted by David Lay of Penzance on February 28-29 was this late 19th century silver gilt and cloisonné enamel presentation vodka set.

Two works by big league Impressionists dating from the early years of the movement are in the spotlight this spring.

Six works hooked off wall and reeled in through barred window

Historic archive from engineer who moved Egyptian obelisk surfaces in Exeter

THE global contemporary art market received an important shot in the arm in London last week as Sotheby's set the highest total ever seen for a contemporary art sale in Europe.

Knock-on effect of turbulence in money markets is less dramatic than feared at art auctions

Dukes have negotiated the sale to the nation of two major Pre-Raphaelite paintings. Music by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones and Hamlet and Ophelia by Dante Gabriel Rossetti were found in the Oxfordshire home of the late Jean Preston that also yielded two panels from the San Marco altarpiece by Fra Angelico sold by the Dorchester auctioneers last year for £1.7m.

Having dramatically grown the auction market for Banksy at their mixed media Vision 21 sales, Bonhams are embarking on a new venture – a dedicated sale of Urban Art.

Sotheby’s have agreed to sponsor Tate Britain’s Duveens Commission, thereby allowing this site-specific sculpture commission to become an annual rather than a biennial event.

Scottish auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull started off their year on January 10 with the sale of the Deloitte Art Collection at The Royal Academy in London.

THE 102-year-old Welsh artist Stanley Lewis (b.1905) is trying to locate the current whereabouts of his painting of The Crosyceilliog Blacksmiths.

The extraordinarily elaborate diptych from c.1350-75, shown here, will be on show at The Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House from January 10 to March 9.

WHAT looked like yet another Old Master sleeper in the provinces appeared in Gloucestershire on December 7.

The Nativity and Annunciation to the Shepherds scenes illustrated here are part of a superb group of 51 miniatures dating from the last years of the 12th century.

SMALL in size but large in shock value, this portrait miniature stunned the Gorringes’ saleroom when it sold at £90,000 plus 17.5 per cent buyer’s premium on December 6.

It is only 3.25in (8cm) high, but it made more than any sculpture or antiquity ever offered at auction.

Russian week in London saw over ten sales offered at Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Bonhams and specialist Russian auctioneers MacDougall’s last week.

Gagosian’s bid gives Sotheby’s new heart

FOUR men have been bailed until Ferbruary 25 next year following the police investigation into the theft of five L.S. Lowry paintings.