Old Masters

An early Anglo-Dutch portrait of the swashbuckling English sea captain Sir Francis Drake topped Bonhams’ Old Master paintings sale on July 4 in New Bond Street. It sold for £290,000, just below its juicy £300,000-500,000 guide.

MADAM – May I trespass on your letters space? Some time ago, I bought at auction a painting by John Hoppner, RA (Leo Keane of Lancashire writes).

Can endorsement by stars such as Beyoncé and Victoria Beckham boost the market?

The July Old Master auctions in London were a mixed affair with the lack of blockbuster lots meaning the overall total was down on the levels of the last two years.

The Paris high season is a time when classic sales of traditional fare are as much to the fore as buoyant sectors such as Asian, contemporary and modern and tribal art.

A painting created by Antonio Canova (1757-1822) as an 18th century art world prank has been rediscovered after more than 200 years.

Karen Taylor Fine Art returns to Illustrationcupboard Gallery for a second summer show, bringing a selection of British 18th and 19th century paintings and drawings this month.

This canvas of the martyrdom of St Sebastian by the Italian Baroque artist Mattia Preti (1613-99) is closely related to one of his most famous works of the same subject, in the Capodimonte Museum in Naples.

A work bought by a dealer at a Christie’s Old Master day sale in London in December 2016, where it was catalogued as ‘circle of Rembrandt (1606-1669)’, has now been attributed to the hand of the master.

This Allegory of Spring by the 17th century Italian artist Pietro Liberi (Padua 1605-Venice 1687) is one of the works in the May 21 auction of Old Master paintings and furnishings that opens Babuino’s next auction series in Rome.