Fine Art

The financial highlight at Lyon & Turnbull’s (25% buyer’s premium) inaugural Modern Made auction at the Mall Galleries in London was provided by an auction record for Malaysian Modernist painter and poet Abdul Latiff Mohidin (b.1938).

The last panoramic painting by William Powell Frith (1819-1909) in private hands has been sold – but will not vanish from the public eye just yet.

Previously unpublished sketches and letters by the American artist and traveller George Catlin (1796-1872) attracted multiple bidders at Forum Auctions in London.

British art historian Frances Spalding on how a post-war buying spree by councils aimed to bring the latest works to the classrooms.

This headstone design of a female nude by the controversial sculptor Eric Gill (1882-1940) was deemed too risky to be realised when he designed it in 1933.

A Mannerist bronze after Giambologna and a rediscovered oil sketch by Peter Paul Rubens posted seven-figure sums during the series of sales coinciding with the Salon du Dessin fair in Paris.

A 2m (6ft 7in) pen and ink drawing, estimated at £5000-7000 in Olympia Auctions on April 17 in west London, forms an intriguing eyewitness view of the final moments of the Indian Mutiny.

Two versions of Edward Bawden’s (1903-89) famous 'Brighton Pier' linocut came up at UK auctions within a day of each other.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Once enthusiastic buyers on the art market, today’s cash-strapped councils have taken on the role of vendor, pushed in an age of austerity to sell their collections and other assets to balance the books.

Four prints hand-engraved by JMW Turner (1775-1851) for a rare and enigmatic series of landscapes feature at the next London Original Print Fair (LOPF) later this month.

The inaugural Modern Made auction held by Lyon & Turnbull at the Mall Galleries in London last week recorded a hammer total of £800,000 (close to £1m including premium).