Auctioneers

Less than six months after they announced the discovery of an unpublished Leonardo drawing, the French auction house Tajan has revealed another major artistic discovery – a pair of paintings by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) that last appeared in the late 18th century. Both the Leonardo and the Fragonards have been declared National Treasures by the French State.

Bloodthirsty, ruthless and mad – Roman emperors have often been perceived as highly unsavoury individuals.

Bruun Rasmussen is holding a sale of Russian works of art in Copenhagen on June 9 featuring material from various private collections, including that of Norwegian commercial attaché Richard Zeiner- Henriksen (1878-1965).

‘Group lots should be viewed’ was the wise recommendation in the catalogue description of this mixed bag offered at Tennants’ (18.5% buyer’s premium) sale of vintage costume, textiles and dolls at Leyburn on May 13.

Over three busy days in May Dominic Winter (19.5% buyer’s premium) mounted a three-catalogue sale that presented close on 1600 lots in all.

A lamp from a wagon that once travelled a 50-mile stretch of track linking the docks of Cardiff to the collieries of the south Wales valleys was hammered down in Bristol at £6300 (plus 18% buyer’s premium).

The general sale at Dominic Winter was followed on May 11 by one of motoring literature, automobilia and historic bicycles and accessories – a 620-lot auction held in conjunction with Transport Collector Auctions.

Many of the most famous artists and designers of the Art Deco era were employed to decorate the interiors of the luxury liner SS Normandie, a virtual floating palace to that most glamorous of inter-war design movements.

The autograph sale held by Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) in New York on May 4 included a musical quotation in the hand of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the theme from the finale of his Orchestral Suite No.3 in G Major (Op.55), which sold for $14,000 (£10,855).

The DNA of Summers Place Auctions remains firmly rooted in the bygone days of Sotheby’s regional empire. But, as the firm marks 10 years as a specialist auction house in Sussex, it is looking to new horizons...

The strikingly striated exotic timber known as palmwood was a signature material for the designer and interior decorator Eugène Printz (1889-1948). A characteristic example of the distinctive furniture he created in this medium featured in the decorative arts sale held by Tajan (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on May 16.