International

Researching Old Master paintings is sometimes likened to putting together the pieces of a jigsaw. But for one upcoming work, it seems this was quite literally the case.

A drawing offered at a Paris auction with an attribution to Italian Renaissance painter Giovanni Francesco Penni (1488-1528) was hammered down at €1.13m (£980,000).

Drawings Week in the French capital included a wide variety of styles, eras and value. Pictured here is a selection of highlights and some more affordable items from the vast array of works on paper of all types offered during Drawings Week in Paris in late March.

Bid to £19,700 in a recent sale was one of 100 signed, large paper firsts of Oscar Wilde’s 'The Importance of Being Earnest' published by Leonard Smithers in 1899.

The ‘Toulouse Caravaggio’ is currently on show at Paris Contemporary art dealership Galerie Kamel Mennour opposite a work more than 400 years its junior.

Not everything in the spring drawings sales required a six-figure bank balance to purchase. Plenty of more affordable works appeared across all the Paris rooms – both Drouot and the independents (and, of course, in the various dealers shows and fairs). Pictured here are some works within the reach of less elevated budgets.

British and Irish book auctions: April 16-27, 2019

UK fine art dealer Dickinson features a single-owner collection of 20th century masters at TEFAF New York Spring next month.

In the 1980s, the 3ft 7in x 2ft 9in (1.1m x 85cm) canvas of Saint Bartholomew being offered by Dorotheum in Vienna on April 30 was tentatively ascribed to Caravaggio. The treatment of light and shadow and the extreme naturalism in the portrayal certainly indicate a proximity to the revolutionary artist.

First published in 1936, The Negro Travellers’ Green Book was a once indispensable guide for African-Americans in the age of segregation.

'Battlefield' is among the works Piano Nobile includes in an exhibition of Paul Nash paintings at Frieze New York.

This gouache is one of around 10 drawings, watercolours and gouaches by René Gruau, the Italian-born fashion illustrator who was renowned for his Paris haute couture and promotional illustrations, which will feature in Tajan’s Paris auction of modern drawings on May 15.

Pook & Pook’s next American and International sale in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, on May 4 will feature a selection of Chinese export porcelain.

English and Continental porcelain from several notable estates is included in Stair Galleries’ next fine sale in Hudson, New York, on April 27-28.