International

Significant sales were made in the opening hours of the 33rd edition of TEFAF Maastricht - despite the absence of some major international buyers due to fears over coronavirus.

A highlight of the first sale of this year held by Poster Auctions International (20% buyer’s premium) in New York on February 23 was a rare 1902 set of four poster panels designed by Alphonse Mucha.

First auction to be held in Freeman’s new Philadelphia site topped by Degas and Van Gogh

The Premier Auction at Brunk (23% buyer’s premium) in Asheville, North Carolina included this 3ft 10in (1.17m) carrara marble Cleopatra morente by the Italian sculptor Pio Fedi (1816-92).

This English miniature terrestrial pocket globe complete with a shagreen case, its interior lined with a celestial map, will feature in the spring sale at CRN Auctions in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on March 15.

This 19th century bronze bust of George Washington cast by the French metal founder Ferdinand Barbedienne after the model by the French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828) will feature in the Bruneau and Co sale at Cranston, Rhode Island, on March 14.

Cottone’s latest auction, in Geneseo, New York, on March 28, includes around 60 items from the collection of Dr Ronald and Krista Reed of Reed Eye Associates, of Rochester.

An unsigned double-sided graphite drawing depicting an assortment of bulls, other animals and equestrian figures ascribed to the French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec will be offered by Leland Little on March 14 in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

The big result in Doyle's (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) latest Old Master Paintings and Drawings sale in New York was the portrait of Pauline Bonaparte Napoleon’s sister by Marie-Victoire Lemoine pictured in ATG No 2429 that sold for $310,000 (£238,700), an auction high for the artist.

Included in a recent sale of American and European paintings and works of art sale at Skinner (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) in Boston was this 7¼x 12¾in (19 x 32.5cm) oil on copper painting, 'The Dispute'.

One of the many memorable scenes in Charles Dickens’ 'Bleak House' was the portrayal of the apparent spontaneous combustion of Mr Krook, leaving “the cinder of a small charred and broken log of wood sprinkled with white ashes”.

It is safe to say that the canvas 'Panorama of the River Scheldt with the Silhouette of Antwerp', executed by the Flemish artist Mathieu Ignace van Bree (1773-1839) in the late 18th century, will not be the most expensive painting sold in Germany this year.

This well-fitted maple wood artist’s box comes with numerous watercolours, mixing bowls and a small folding easel.