Ink Drawing

A political cartoon showing the face of Margaret Thatcher emerging from the side of her handbag was one of the top lots at the Sotheby’s London auction of Gerald Scarfe’s drawings this week.

An illustration of the Polish composer Frederic Chopin by Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) was the star attraction at a recent auction in Wales.

Among the best Modern British pictures offered at Lawrences of Crewkerne on July 6 was Edward Burra’s (1905-76) ‘Funfair’, which was consigned from a good local collection barely 24 hours before the catalogue went to press.

Appearing in Carmarthen on July 24, this illustration of the Polish composer Frederic Chopin by author Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) was discovered during a routine house call by auctioneers Peter Francis.

Previously unknown to scholars, this exceptional pen and ink drawing by Canaletto (1697-1768) set an auction record for a work on paper by the artist at the latest series of Old Master sales in London.

Wind in the Willows characters Mole, Ratty and Toad are to go under the hammer at Michael Bowman of Newton Abbot in Devon on May 5.

IN the early hours of August 6, a Henry Moore sketch and two oil paintings were stolen from Trinity House on the High Street in Broadway, south Worcestershire.

WILTSHIRE auctioneers Netherhampton Salerooms were celebrating a new house record on March 3 after a disbound album of Far Eastern topographical drawings sold for £43,000.

FOUND hanging in a Boston bathroom, the whereabouts of this Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) illustration had been a mystery for more than 80 years. Entitled The Climax, and hanging in the lavatory alongside another Beardsley pen-and-ink drawing called A Platonic Lament, the owners had no idea of its significance.

TO the connoisseurial mind, it was not the paintings that lit up the Old Master series in London in early July but rather three rediscovered drawings by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) offered in a dedicated Old Master and 19th century works on paper sale at Christie’s on July 8.

A world record price for a comic-strip illustration was paid at a specalist sale at Artcurial in Paris on March 29: Georges Remi Hergé’s 1932 ink-and-gouache design for the cover of Tintin en Amérique.

“A MOMENT of European importance” is how architects acknowledge Tyringham Hall in Buckinghamshire. It is one of the greatest country houses designed by Sir John Soane (1753-1837), the leading architect of his generation.

“Business has been good, but to achieve this I have had to work extremely hard.” This is how Chris Beetles summed up 2004 and, having already taken over £500,000 in sales from his renowned annual exhibition of British illustrators, he is ending the year on a bullish note.

ON view at the Belgrave Gallery, St Ives, these two works by the late Sir Terry Frost represent a gap of some 60 years.

BOUGHT for a few pounds at a Surrey church bazaar within the last five years, this James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) pen and ink drawing, right, made a tidy profit for its vendor when it fetched a surprise £26,000 at Rosebery’s (15% buyer’s premium) Quarterly Select Auction in West Norwood, South East London.

Seen here are two black ink silhouettes of Teeterree and Thomas Tooi that sold for £2500 as part of the book and ephemera section of an antiques sale held on October 5 by Finan & Co. of Mere.

The brutality and horror of everyday life in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp can be seen in a collection of pen, ink and watercolour sketches to be offered on April 16 at Bonhams, New Bond Street’s sale of topographical pictures.