Art Market

Contemporary art drew considerable interest at Tennants (20% buyer’s premium).

British portraiture with pedigree provided plenty of action in a strong sale of pictures at Cheffins (22.5% buyer’s premium) of Cambridge.

Led by the portrait of an Italian mastiff by il Guercino (1591-1666), dogs took a starring role in the Cheffins' March 8 sale. The delightful oil of a stocky ‘Cane Corso’, perhaps the artist’s own dog, overshot a £80,000-120,000 estimate and was knocked down at £570,000 – the highest auction price in the English regions so far this year.

The sale-topper at Wilkinson’s Auctioneers (20% buyer’s premium) of Doncaster in South Yorkshire was a16th century English portrait of an aristocratic lady.

A pair of trademark gouaches by Mary Fedden (1915-2012) drew strong bidding at auctions in Derbyshire and Essex.

A picture by Bloomsbury Group painter Roger Fry (1886-1934) drew strong bidding at Holloway’s in Banbury.

A painting by the obscure Welsh artist James Dickson Innes (1887-1914) generated keen bidding at Essex saleroom Stacey’s (24% buyer’s premium) on February 26.

This 23in x 2ft 7in (59 x 80cm) oil on canvas is attributed to Blanche Hoschedé-Monet (1865-1947), the step-daughter and daughter-in-law of Claude Monet.

More than 100 paintings owned by the Royal Society of Marine Artists were dispersed in a Norfolk auction.

The 20th century portraitist Meredith Frampton (1894-1984) achieved remarkable success in a relatively short career.

The Buckinghamshire countryside, with its rolling hills, fields, hedgerows and trees, inspired much of the art of John Nash (1893-1977), the younger and less well-known brother of Paul Nash.

When it comes to the business of selling middle-market collections, the big London salerooms are particularly adept at cherry-picking the best and rejecting the rest.

Topographical watercolours may not be the hottest area of the art market, but they can still pack a punch in the saleroom.

This oil painting of the RMS Queen Mary, below, by marine painter William McDowell (1888-1950) was taken to a multi-estimate £12,000 at Surrey saleroom John Nicholson’s (24% buyer’s premium).

Chiswick Auctions (25/12% buyer’s premium) has held its first dedicated Old Masters sale, capitalising on the void left by Christie’s South Kensington’s closure last year.

Experimental work by the Czech Expressionist Ernest Neuschul (1895-1968) chimed with current tastes in a sell-out studio sale in Somerset.

Private material sourced from old estates helped Gloucestershire saleroom Chorley’s (20% buyer’s premium) get the year off to a positive start.

A 19th century painted print of a Maori took top honours at Heliers Auction (18% buyer’s premium) in Blackburn, Lancashire.

As celebrations get under way to mark the centenary of women gaining the right to vote (or over-30s at least), the Modern British art market is showing a growing appetite for 20th century female artists.

A bustling scene of Leicester Square by genre painter Edward Prentis (1797-1854) took £6800 at David Lay (18% buyer’s premium) of Penzance.