Sculpture

A branch of the visual arts traditionally typified for being solid and three dimensional. Media used to create sculpture including stone, bronze, pottery and wood. In their appearance, sculptures may be divided into two categories, either free-standing (in the round) or adjoined to a background surface (relief).

With the development of plastic art in the 20th and 21st century, the definition of sculpture was broadened to include works specifically concerned with the three-dimensional form.


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Piamontini’s ‘ravishingly detailed’ clay model discovered at Fife estate and triples estimate at Lyon & Turnbull

07 September 2020

This terracotta group of Bacchus and Ariadne was once associated with the Florentine late Baroque sculptor Giambattista Foggini (1652-1725) but is now thought to be his contemporary Giuseppe Piamontini (1664-1742).

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Pick of the week: Bronze reflecting blossoming of Buddhism in China makes at £50,000 at TimeLine

07 September 2020

The Northern Wei dynasty (386-534 AD), founded by the nomadic Tuoba clan, was the most long-lived and most powerful of the northern dynasties prior to the reunification of China under the Sui. Most importantly for Chinese art history, the ruling royal family were converts to Buddhism.

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Statues surface from sunken garden site after decades in the undergrowth

24 August 2020

An extraordinary cache of garden statuary, unseen for decades, comes for sale at Summers Place Auctions next month.

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Film producer buys Seacole bust for 101 times the estimate

10 August 2020

A terracotta sculpture of Mary Seacole (1805-81) sparked fierce competition at Dominic Winter.

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Bust of British-Jamaican Crimean War heroine Mary Seacole sells for £101,000 at auction and heads to Nightingale Museum

04 August 2020

A terracotta sculpture of Mary Seacole (1805-81), who nursed dying and wounded soldiers during the Crimean War, will go on display in the Florence Nightingale Museum after it was sold at auction last week.

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Individual highlights at London 'high season' sales but totals hit as vendors hang on to works

03 August 2020

The ‘high season’ of summer auctions in London held by Sotheby’s and Christie’s generated £205.8m including premium last week.

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Elisabeth Frink studio reconstructed thanks to dealer Messums

03 August 2020

Last year Messums rescued the Wolland studio of artist Elisabeth Frink (1930-93) from collapse and has now reconstructed it in its Wiltshire premises.

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Abbott & Holder promote Duncan Grant for the 21st century

20 July 2020

Abbott & Holder recently sold a bronze head of Duncan Grant (1885-1975) by Stephen Tomlin (1901-37) to the Charleston Trust, owners of the East Sussex home where Grant once lived and worked with other members of the Bloomsbury Group.

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Los Angeles sale to offer bronze tribute to the vanquished

13 July 2020

This late 19th century French bronze figural group, 'Gloria Victis', after the model by Marius-Jean-Antonin Mercié (1845-1916), will be offered in Andrew Jones Auctions’ Design for the Home and Garden sale in Los Angeles on July 26.

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Rare Antonio Susini sculpture found in £12 box of bric-a-brac to be auctioned in Christie’s Classic Week series

08 July 2020

A Mannerist bronze discovered in a box of bric-a-brac at an auction in South Africa is to be offered at Christie’s in London this week.

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Government issues export bar for Roman marble Celtic hounds in hope of finding UK buyer

08 July 2020

The owner of a pair of Celtic hounds has been temporarily prevented from exporting the sculptures by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

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Louvre secures Renaissance bronze by French sculptor

15 June 2020

A newly discovered bronze by a French Renaissance sculptor was acquired by the Louvre museum for €1.15m (£1.05m) at an auction in Paris on June 9.

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Orientalist sculpture for sale in Nantes

15 June 2020

Friedrich Goldscheider (1845-97) is famous for founding the Goldscheider ceramics factory which was set up in Vienna in 1885.

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Bronze figures representing rivers by Bernini’s pupils bring strong bidding in Lower Saxony

08 June 2020

One of the central attractions in Rome is the Piazza Navona and the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers). It was designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1650 at the behest of Pope Innocent X.

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Bronze group purchaser could be rewarded if research confirms Giambologna link

11 May 2020

At Keys (20% buyer’s premium) in Aylsham a lot catalogued as ‘a patinated bronze group of a lion attacking a horse’ drew – and to an extent commanded – much attention.

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Summers Place Auctions' last-minute decision to take remote bids only pays off

27 April 2020

The sale at garden statuary specialist Summers Place Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) in Billingshurst on March 24 (the day after lockdown) was among the first conducted under new government restrictions on social distancing.

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Hippo bathroom set by François-Xavier Lalanne scrubs up nicely for Sotheby’s Paris auction

13 April 2020

A bathroom set in the form of a family of hippos by François-Xavier Lalanne (1927-2008) is set to be a highlight of Sotheby’s Paris design auction in late June.

Gavin Strang of Lyon and Turnbull

“The longest time I have ever spent on the rostrum” – Lyon & Turnbull’s live online sale delivers results

03 April 2020

Lyon & Turnbull held a remarkably successful sale of Decorative Arts on April 1 – the firm’s first using the ‘live online’ format.

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Sunny outlook for the first Canterbury weekend format

30 March 2020

With Storm Ciara getting under way (in pre-coronavirus days…) it was not, perhaps, the ideal time to launch the new weekend sales at Canterbury Auction Galleries (20% buyer’s premium).

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Baroque ivory sleeper could be Schenck masterwork

23 March 2020

This stellar 17th century Baroque ivory plaque depicting the Pieta attended by angels and putti carries the name 'IC Storer' for the German artist Johann Christoph Storer (1621-71).

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