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On a lesser scale than the exceptional £35,000 George II chairs at Holloway’s sale, but standing out from the general run of brown furniture, were other encouraging results across the country in February.

The roster of exhibitor names at the Salon du Dessin underscores the international standing of this specialist event. Although it is organised by a committee of Paris dealers, more than half the participants come from overseas.

A small soapstone figure of a grinning, reclining Buddha stole the show at Thomas Watson (24% buyer’s premium) of Darlington when it smashed its estimate of £80-120 to sell for £16,500.

Flash from the past at the Diss rooms of TW Gaze (18% buyer’s premium).

Dwarfed as they were by the £440,000 oil of St John the Evangelist (see ATG last week, No 2332), a number of other lots helped to make Holloway’s (20% buyer’s premium) first major sale of the year in Banbury on February 27 an event to remember.

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.

Estimated at £8000-12,000, this five-piece sterling silver tea and coffee service by Harald Nielsen (1891-1977) for Georg Jensen will go under the hammer at Great Western Auctions’ Fine Art & Antique sale on March 23-24.

New York gallery show coincides with and adds to the Asian art week of events...

Sotheby’s has something special to offer for the Paris drawings fest – a single-owner collection formed by a dedicated couple that, say the auctioneers, is the fruit of a life dedicated to a passion for painting and drawings.

Commander John Morton Lee OBE RN (retd.), who had a long career in the Royal Navy before turning his passion for watercolours into a dealer business, died peacefully on February 26 after a brief illness, aged 88.

There tends to be two key narratives about the antiques business of interest to the mainstream media.

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.

One highlight of a February 20 sale held in Italy was the handsome, armorially bound 1694 first edition of the Swiss born architect Carlo Fontana’s Templum Vaticanum.

‘Rock Star’ of physics and Nobel Prize winner, Richard Feynman, habitually refused to sign copies of his books, telling his editor: “I’m not going to go on TV and I’m not going to sign any books!”

Gerald Weinpolter is based in Vienna and specialises in Austrian painting.

Ephemera Society member Robertino Poposki has been awarded the silver prize in the ephemera class at the Spring Stampex 2018, organised by the Association of British Philatelic Societies.

Stephen Walters is a maritime expert who has acted as a consultant to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich – the largest task being to design and part-curate the William Bligh bicentenary exhibition in 1989.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period March 1-7, 2018. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

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

There is, of course, no shortage of works on paper to be found on sale at the Drouot auction centre either in the form of dedicated auctions or as sections within mixed-discipline sales.