International

One of only two known portraits of a black sitter by a woman artist in the late 19th century has been acquired by a Canadian museum from a London dealer.

One of the big surprises at a recent Ketterer (27% buyer’s premium) book auction in Hamburg was the result for a signed lithograph by Maurits Cornelis Escher.

Anicet Charles Gabriel Lemonnier had a long and distinguished career, making a name for himself with his many-figured paintings of historical meetings.

Johannes Blaeu’s 'Atlas maior, sive Cosmographia…' is considered the finest collection of maps ever produced.

Since it was purchased at Sotheby’s in London in 1935, a painting by Pieter Brueghel the Younger had remained in possession of the family of a Swiss collector.

Banker and businessman Jörg Woltmann, who rescued the Berlin porcelain manufacturer, now also acquires a huge vase by the firm.

The latest round of art auctions in Ireland showed a marked buoyancy with totals and selling rates up on recent years.

Pelé’s Brazil 1958 match-worn World Cup final shirt is up for auction with an estimate ‘in excess of $6m’.

This early 20th century Russian silver and cloisonné enamel pill box measuring just 1½in (3.5cm) across bears marks for Fabergé and Feodor Ruckert (1840-1917).

The Japanese netsuke carver Naito Toyomasa (1773-1856) was renowned for his miniature portrayals of animals in a distinctive, highly detailed style.

Selection of advertising art underlines the extraordinary demand in Germany

Two very different pieces of glass went way over the odds at a specialist sale at Dr Fischer (30% buyer’s premium) in Heilbronn.

Two impressive vases from the Imperial Porcelain Factory in St Petersburg took top honours at the sale held by Auktionshaus OWL (27% buyer’s premium) on May 16 in Bad Driburg in North-Rhine-Westfalia.

In 1934, a meeting of two great modern painters took place in Bern. One of them was the Expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, who had left Germany shortly before the end of the First World War.

Both the first and the first trade editions of A Room of One’s Own (1929) were among a collection of eight Virginia Woolf lots included in the April 16 Rare Books, Autographs, & Maps auction at Doyle (28% buyer’s premium) in New York.

An “exceedingly uncommon” signed and inscribed photograph of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) earned top-lot honours in an Autographs sale held at Swann.

The illustrated book that Vasily Kandinsky published in 1913 under the title 'Klänge' (Sounds) is considered one of the finest examples of Expressionist literature.

Until now, paintings by the Dutch artist Lode Sengers (1896-1956) have rarely gone into four figures.