Fine Art

The latest round of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s represented the highest overall total for a ‘London’ auction series since before the coronavirus pandemic.

Works by the Zinkeisen sisters continue to bring demand at auctions around the country.

Old Master paintings come up for sale throughout the year in France but the summer season traditionally mounts a number of dedicated auctions in the field.

Among works by eastern European artists in demand recently, two pictures by modern Polish artists led the sale at a Buckinghamshire auction.

Some of the world’s most famous Old Master paintings have been highly regarded for many centuries, carrying a reputation that has led to them being replicated and copied by other artists – sometimes soon after their creation.

A third-generation dealer, Elizabeth Fitzsimmons specialises in Old Master portraiture and has recently launched her first website selling portraits from the 16th-20th centuries.

Works by Grigorescu are seldom seen in British auctions but one emerged in West Sussex

An occasional feature on mystery works the Art UK charity is seeking help to identify

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Believed to date from the mid-17th century, this double portrait is a fascinating painting on many accounts.

Determined international bidders knew exactly what they were looking for at a sale of icons and Russian works of art held by Dr Fischer (28% buyer’s premium) in Heilbronn.

This unique steel sculpture is among a series of monumental works by the late Michael Lyons (1943-2019) on display at Thirsk Hall & Sculpture Park in North Yorkshire thanks to London gallery Willoughby Gerrish.

For over a century, a 5ft x 6ft 4in (1.52 x 1.93m) painting of Samson and Delilah had slumbered as the work of an unknown Italian artist in a German private collection.

Works by the prolific Arthur Wardle (1864- 1949) appear regularly on the market, most often his paintings of dogs and other hunting animals.

In 1922, Theo van Doesburg, gave a course at the Bauhaus in Weimar, devoted to the artists’ group De Stijl he had co-founded some five years before.

In the 1960s, the Austrian painter Günter Brus (b.1938) regularly made the headlines with his artistic happenings, which often involved covering himself and his models in paint and on one occasion, in 1965, led to him being arrested.

An unusual number of high prices for pictures has been recorded outside London this season.

Richard Miller (1947-2018) was a man with many interests and a good eye.