Art Market

A group of works with provenance to one of India’s oldest commercial art galleries, emerged at a Plakas (29% buyer’s premium) auction on May 21.

Collectors are looking for lesser-known artists beyond the top targets in a notably strong market

Small but intriguing coastal scene estimated at just £50-80 spotted by eager bidders and taken to £3500

Although figurative studies, still-lifes and landscapes are most common in the oeuvre of Duncan Grant (1885-1978), it was a work with a somewhat different subject that turned heads at a recent auction in Carmarthen.

The artist Alfred W Hallett (1914-86) is mostly known for his portraits, landscapes and flower paintings made in India from 1938 onwards.

Among a good number of works by John Nash (1893-1977) commanding interest at the spring sales this year was a painting titled 'Gnarled Trees' which came to Ewbank’s (25% buyer’s premium) in Surrey.

Rare family tree drawing by the 18th-century artist, magician, musician and showman comes to auction

While the Cheffins auction featured the original drawing for the Duke of Wellington’s funeral carriage (see main Art Market story in this edition), the funeral of another British hero of the Napoleonic wars was in the spotlight in a London sale.

Cardiff auction indicates latest demand trends influencing the market for leading Welsh painter Sir Kyffin Williams

Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African, tells the remarkable story of an African born on a British slave ship who earned a place among the London elite.

Among the most intriguing naïve pictures sold recently was a simple and ostensibly unassuming painting of a ship offered at a recent Dominic Winter (22% buyer’s premium) auction.

Lucy Madox Brown Rossetti (1843-94) was linked to two of the most famous artistic families of the 19th century.

Joseph Southall’s (1861-1944) picture Cymon and Iphigenia was probably made with the help of the artist’s chickens.

A strong result for a 19th century genre picture was achieved for the Italian artist Vittorio Reggianini (1858-1939) at Tennants (24% buyer’s premium) of Leyburn, North Yorkshire.

Top-seller when a collection of antiques from the estate of a descendant of one of Britain’s longest-serving chancellors of the exchequer went to auction in the Cotswolds was an oil painting “in the manner of 17th century royal portraitist Peter Lely”.