Oil painting

Follow-up on the mystery covered in ATG No 2422:

A picture of a famous Italian Grand Tour view by one of the best-regarded artists of the American Hudson River school of painting is one of the highlights of a sale at Skinner in Boston on January 24.

The Old Master paintings section of the sale taking place at Doyle in New York on February 5 will include this large and imposing portrait of Pauline Bonaparte, the younger sister of Napoleon.

Only recently has the name Marguerite Gérard (1761-1837) re-emerged from the long shadow cast by her brother-in-law and tutor, Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806).

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

A ‘prominent’ northern English family consigned a seascape by the Dutch Golden Age painter Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-82) to Anderson & Garland (22% buyer’s premium).

An international buyer paid £34,000 for a 15th century Netherlandish School oil on panel of the Virgin and St Elizabeth which was last on the market in 1955.

Bidders respond positively to auction combination of quality, freshness and pricing.

Musical manuscript and portrait on song in salerooms.

An occasional feature on mystery works the Art UK charity is seeking help to identify.

This portrait by Nicolas Régnier (1588-1657) of a richly attired lady possibly depicts Maria Farnese and appears to have been executed when the artist was in Modena where he painted several portraits of members of the d’Este court.

Included among more than 70 paintings and prints offered at Dorset saleroom Clarke’s Auctions (18% buyer’s premium) was this uncharacteristic Joseph Farquharson (1846-1935) oil of the artist’s garden in Aberdeenshire.

A flurry of bids emerged for this late-17th century canine study at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood of Exeter (23% buyer’s premium).

Like John Constable before him, the 19th century painter John Arnesby Brown (1866-1955) found endless inspiration in the low horizons and expansive skies of East Anglia. He was also interested in light and atmosphere and the effect of sunshine and shadow on the landscape.

The history of the motif which inspired an unknown Italian master of the second half of the 18th century can be traced back to the 2nd century BC.

Harry Becker (1865-1928) is not well known outside East Anglia but he is much admired both for a skilled grasp of Impressionism and his choice of subject matter.

An Abstract work by the 20th century Filipino artist Oscar Zalameda (1930-2010) emerged as the star lot in an interiors auction in West Sussex.

From a Boston fireman’s helmet to an Islamic 13th century marble panel, the large mixed-discipline summer sale to be held by US auction house Thomaston Place in Maine over three days from August 23-25 ranges widely in terms of date and type.

MADAM – The BBC’s 'Fake or Fortune?' returned to TV screens last month with a Thomas Gainsborough mystery. I watched with great interest, and a degree of trepidation.