Europe

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions (online only at present because of the Covid-19 alert).

Rare work on absolute geometry among highlights of mammoth German ‘lockdown’ sale

Personal items that belonged to Marie-Antoinette were the highlights of Osenat’s (20.83/18% buyer’s premium) themed sale titled Royalty at Versailles.

Our regular listing of books and works on paper auctions the UK and Ireland.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions - all held online only for now because of the coronavirus alert.

This late-18th century French school portrait of Michel Louis Melan, architect to Louis XVI, will be offered for sale in Osenat’s auction titled La Royauté à Versailles to be held in the town on May 24.

This unpublished carved wooden statuette from the Senufo peoples of south-east Mali, west Africa, is to be offered in a 154-lot sale of Tribal Art to be held on May 26 by Ader in its Paris, rue Favart rooms in collaboration with the Euvrard Fabre auction house.

Christie’s Paris rooms has announced a programme of 18 summer sales that it will be holding over May, June and July. These are a mixture of timed auctions and live online (huis clos) auctions.

For centuries, China was a rewarding market for European clock and watchmakers who created extravagant timepieces for their Oriental clientele.

Among the interesting lots sold at Scheublein (26% buyer’s premium), in Munich on April 24 (a sale originally scheduled for March 20), was a 'Still Life with Basket of Fruit and Flowers'.

Over nearly four decades, a collector in Copenhagen acquired works of art to furnish and decorate a patrician residence in the Danish capital. Part of his eclectic collection is on sale at Lempertz in Cologne on May 29-30.

Work thought to be by studio assistant is regarded as accessible alternative to famous master

As a rule, musical boxes, which were the favoured mode of reproducing music by mechanical means in the salons of Europe and the US during the 19th century, were more or less portable mechanisms.

Top lot in a recent sale conducted by Galerie Bassenge (23% buyer’s premium) of Berlin, at €140,000 (£121,800), was a 1687 first issue of Newton’s 'Principia mathematica….'

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions - all being held online only for now because of the coronavirus alert.

Anyone walking past the Palais de Chaillot in Paris may have noticed a large sculpture of an architect on the edifice of the north wing. It is the work of the French artist Jean-René Debarre who was born in 1907.

Several surprising prices emerged at Geble (19% buyer’s premium) in Radolfzell on Lake Constance on April 25.

This late 19th century surcoat or longgua, finely embroidered in silk and gold thread with eight dragon roundels, was originally worn by a high-ranking woman at the Chinese Imperial court.