Drawing

A remarkable sketchbook compiled after its creator had been taken prisoner at the fall of Singapore in the Second World War sold for £1650 (estimate £500-700) as part of a timed online sale.

Among the images included in Emanuel von Baeyer’s latest catalogue is a study of a female nude by Evelyn De Morgan (1855-1919).

Without doubt, the sensation of the German auction season was the emergence of a sketchbook belonging to the German romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich at Grisebach (32/27% buyer’s premium) in Berlin.

A design for a swan-shaped pendant suspended by a gracefully curved neck and bearing a scene of two more swans is among the highlights at an exhibition on the drawings and sketches of René Lalique (1860-1945).

A group of works by society portraitist Frank O Salisbury are being auctioned at Roseberys to raise money for the British art charity the Walpole Society.

The October 18-19 sale at Everard Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) in Savannah, Georgia, featured manuscripts, photos and ephemera focused on European royalty.

A small sketch of two ships in a gale by the leading Dutch marine painter Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633-1707) was among the lots bringing interest at Roseberys’ (25% buyer’s premium) summer sale of Old Master, British & European pictures.

The artist and Royal Academy founder Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92) was also a major collector, especially in the field of Old Master works on paper.

A drawing of Jean François Millet’s (1814-75) most famous image generated unexpected levels of bidding in Alameda, California.

In recent times the work of newspaper cartoonists has been reassessed with a nod to its artistic, technical and historical merit.

This drawing by the Surrealist artist Francis Picabia (1879-1953) had several interesting associations in its provenance.

A six-figure sum for Belgian Symbolist Fernand Khnopff was the top lot of Christie’s drawing-focused sale.

Also during drawing week, and on the same day and just around the corner from Christie’s, Artcurial held a related art auction.

The Drouot auction centre was also celebrating drawing week with no shortage of drawings and works on paper on offer.

Demonstrations and the bags of rubbish piled up on the Paris streets were no deterrent for visitors to the Salon du Dessin in March.

Simple Salford street scene dating from year after he left art school is now at £70,000 hammer price level