International

For many years New York’s major salerooms mounted auction series of Old Master paintings, drawings and sculpture in the first months of the year immediately following their Americana series.

Illustrations offered as part of an online Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium) sale held in early December included a couple of Arthur Rackhams.

Inscribed to a fellow dramatist, a presentation copy of the 1933 first of Nathaniel West’s classic black comedy, Miss Lonelyhearts, did exceptionally well at Christie’s New York (25/20/12.5%).

UK art shippers are urging the government to speed up Brexit ‘deal or no deal’ preparations at the country’s major ferry ports as the UK prepares to leave the European Union on March 29.

Auctions on New Year’s Day are a tradition in regional North America. The sale at Nadeau’s in Windsor, Connecticut, on the first day of 2019 included a collection of 17th and 18th century English silver that had been given to Yale University in 1896 in memory of a former alumnus, the Pennsylvania coal baron James Browne Neale.

Bound as two volumes in contemporary red morocco gilt, its plates and plans finely coloured and gilt heightened throughout, an exceptional example of Joan Blaeu’s celebrated 17th century townbook of the Netherlands was offered in a recent American sale.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from January 8-31, 2019.

Since 1994, the New York businessman Richard Baron Cohen has been a welcome guest at international auctions, fairs and dealers.

Painted as a birthday gift, a portrait of one of the more popular characters in the annals of American children’s literature, Eloise, sold for $80,000 (£62,675) at Bonhams New York (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on December 5.

A rare 11th century Portolan chart on vellum will be offered by the Il Ponte auction house in a sale of books and manuscripts in Milan on January 22.

German and Latin versions of ‘Nuremburg Chronicle’ impress in separate sales.

This Chinese export porcelain punch bowl will feature in a large two-day sale of more than 750 lots of Americana and international interest at Pook & Pook in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, on January 11-12.

Eight determined bidders were on hand when Karl & Faber (25% buyer’s premium) sold a floral still-life by Nicolaes van Veerendael (1640-91) at auction in Munich.

Two pieces with imperial connections took the top honours during the November 5-23 sale at Hermann Historica (25% buyer’s premium) in Munich.

Topping the results list at a recent sale at Grisebach (30/25/20% buyer’s premium) in Berlin was a work by the German Expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner that was created on island in the Baltic.

One of the most iconic photographic images of war came under the hammer at a recent Westlicht (20% buyer’s premium) auction in Vienna.

Since the early 1990s Wolfgang Thillmann, a German and philosophy teacher, has devoted himself to collecting Thonet bentwood furniture and become an internationally acknowledged expert in the process.