Fine Art

Discovered lying unrecognised on a bookcase in a Sussex cottage, a unique edition of Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard will be offered at Gorringe’s this month with a £100,000-150,000 estimate.

Interest in the exquisitely detailed ornithological paintings produced by Indian artists from the late 18th to the mid-19th centuries has grown significantly over the last few decades.

The 466-lot sale of the Sally Hunter and Ian Posgate collection at Sworders was a marathon event – taking over 10 hours in all.

Although long-standing Paris fair for works on paper the Salon du Dessin has moved its dates to July 1-4, the other Paris fair, Drawing Now, devoted to Contemporary works on paper, usually staged at the same time, is taking place this month from June 10-13.

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

This panel painting of The Annunciation is on offer at the sale of Old Master paintings at Aguttes on June 17.

Dozens of art and antiques galleries in the Left Bank area of Paris known as the Carré Rive Gauche are enticing art lovers back to the district with a five-day event showcasing new stock and exhibitions.

Christie’s sale in Paris on June 16 includes this portrait of a young woman writing a letter by the artist known as The Master of the Female Half Lengths.

Photography specialist the Michael Hoppen Gallery is relocating from Jubilee Place in Chelsea, its home of 37 years.

A highlight at Millon on June 14 is a miniature painted with a double portrait of the Mughal emperors Shah Jahan and his son and successor Aurangzeb.

A charcoal drawing by Henri Matisse (1869-1954) that has not been seen since the major retrospective on the artist at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1948 is to be offered at auction in Aix-en-Provence.

Painting was reoffered without the original vendor being kept in the loop

With a major photography exhibition under way at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire dedicated to celebrity portraits by Cecil Beaton, two satellite shows open their doors celebrating the British photographer’s costume designs and theatrical pictures.

Sotheby’s Paris sale of Old Masters on June 15 offers a selection of paintings and sculpture spanning the Middle Ages through to the 19th century.

In the year commemorating 200 years since the death of Napoleon, pendant portraits of Napoleon and Josephine Bonaparte have been reunited after more than a century apart.

Along with his famous Pre-Raphaelite colleagues Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and George Frederic Watts, John Roddam Spencer-Stanhope was often influenced by the tales of classical antiquity and the paintings of Italian Old Masters.

Exhibition concentrates on John Craxton works before he moved to Greece after the war

The early 20th century German photographer August Sander has a legendary status, not least for his long-running series of documentary portraits, published under the title 'People of the 20th Century'.