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BRAFA is a big draw for the visitor in late January but as well as enjoying all that Brussels has to offer in general cultural terms there are other art and antiques-related events on at the same time.

Greenslade Taylor Hunt’s (19.5% buyer’s premium) first sale of the year got off to a bright start with a Singaporean painting sailing to £19,000.

Three modestly valued works sold in regional sales.

Sensual, satirical and grotesque: the works of Beresford Egan (1905-84) certainly fit a description of ‘distinctive’.

MADAM – Various of your correspondents over the last few weeks find that the prospect of paying for a condition report, as well as a buyer’s premium, sticks in their craw.

Historically the first major sale of the year, the January ‘furniture’ auction at Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) turns eyes towards Salisbury for evidence of what the next 12 months will bring.

'Snow on the farmhouses of Les Contamines-Montjoie' has begun to thaw in this oil by Charles-Henri Contencin (1898-1955), part of John Mitchell’s annual 'Peaks and Glaciers' exhibition (January 24-March 8).

Gerald Brockhurst (1890-1978) was already an established etcher when his captivating canvases of society women catapulted him to fame during the interwar years.

Much of the pre-sale interest in the 19th century paintings offered at the major London rooms centred on two landscapes by Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) at Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium).

A letter of 1803 in which George III, writing to Lord Hawkesbury, effectively declares his intention to renew war on France, was at £9000 one of the more successful lots in a recent Cambridge sale that produced its fair share of surprise results.

Among the numerous dealers at BRAFA showing early works of art is Brussels’ Gallery Desmet, which specialises in sculpture and objects ranging from Antiquity to the Grand Tour.

Whitford Fine Art from London is a long-standing BRAFA stalwart (understandably given that the gallery’s core stock is work by 20th century Belgian and international artists).

Dated c.1930, this Lenci figure of a girl in fashionable culottes, below, was estimated at £200-300 at Adam Partridge (20% buyer’s premium) but appears to have been spotted as one of the rarer products of the Turin factory.

Groucho, Harpo and Chico are shown below in Al Hirschfield’s original cover artwork for 'Why a Duck?', a profusely illustrated work about the Marx Brothers edited by Richard J Anobile and published in 1971.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Finch & Co from London has been showing at BRAFA for 12 years. “We regard it as one of the most successful and well-organised art and antique events in Europe,” notes the firm’s Jan Finch.

MADAM – At what point is the auction world going to own up and confront the shame of poor valuing?

Sellers should be wary about Private Treaty Sales where the exact result is hidden

The owner of an 18th century double-manual harpsichord, the only one of its type known to exist, has been temporarily prevented from exporting it in the hope a UK buyer can be found.

On Friday, January 18, Michael Bloomstein of Brighton was paying the following for bulk scrap against a gold fix of: $1285.05 / €1072.71 / £993.34.