Fine Art

It was scenes of pleasure boats at Lytham St Anne’s on the Lancashire coast like the one shown below that Lowry’s mother supposedly favoured over her son’s darker industrial scenes.

A spectacular competition came at Woolley & Wallis’ latest picture sale as 12 bidders pursued a pair of Italian Old Masters which the auction house had spotted tucked away in a dark corner of the vendor’s top landing.

A highlight of the first sale of this year held by Poster Auctions International (20% buyer’s premium) in New York on February 23 was a rare 1902 set of four poster panels designed by Alphonse Mucha.

First auction to be held in Freeman’s new Philadelphia site topped by Degas and Van Gogh

The Premier Auction at Brunk (23% buyer’s premium) in Asheville, North Carolina included this 3ft 10in (1.17m) carrara marble Cleopatra morente by the Italian sculptor Pio Fedi (1816-92).

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales including an Edith Lawrence linocut.

This 19th century bronze bust of George Washington cast by the French metal founder Ferdinand Barbedienne after the model by the French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828) will feature in the Bruneau and Co sale at Cranston, Rhode Island, on March 14.

An unsigned double-sided graphite drawing depicting an assortment of bulls, other animals and equestrian figures ascribed to the French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec will be offered by Leland Little on March 14 in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

This portrait study is by Sybil Atteck (1911-75), a pioneering artist in Trinidad and Tobago of Chinese descent known for her work in watercolour.

The big result in Doyle's (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) latest Old Master Paintings and Drawings sale in New York was the portrait of Pauline Bonaparte Napoleon’s sister by Marie-Victoire Lemoine pictured in ATG No 2429 that sold for $310,000 (£238,700), an auction high for the artist.

Textbook watercolour by the British artist takes one of his higher prices in recent years.

The artist Henri Jules Jean Geoffroy (1853-1924), known as ‘Géo’, was a member of the French Naturalist movement and was best known for his paintings of Parisian children and daily urban life.

Included in a recent sale of American and European paintings and works of art sale at Skinner (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) in Boston was this 7¼x 12¾in (19 x 32.5cm) oil on copper painting, 'The Dispute'.

The second Bristol Vintage Photograph Fair due to be held on Easter Sunday, April 12, at The Royal Photograph Society’s headquarters in the city has been cancelled.

A briefly catalogued 20th century painting, spotted by bidders as the work of the Ontario-born painter David Milne (1882-1953), raced to £38,000 at auction in Teddington. It had come for sale from Eaton Cottage in Thames Ditton, Surrey, with an estimate of just £100-200.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales including a Trevor Grimshaw steam train.

It is safe to say that the canvas 'Panorama of the River Scheldt with the Silhouette of Antwerp', executed by the Flemish artist Mathieu Ignace van Bree (1773-1839) in the late 18th century, will not be the most expensive painting sold in Germany this year.