Fine Art

The potential star of the show at the sale of Selected Works held by Grisebach (25% buyer’s premium) in Berlin on November 30 lived up to its expectations.

Beloved of TV antiques programmes and of bidders knowing the lots are absolutely fresh to market, there are few phrases to stir the blood at an auction as much as ‘from the attic’.

The so-called ‘Great Bardfield Artists’, named after the Essex village where a community of painters and designers lived from the 1930s onwards, has become fertile ground for local auction house Sworders (22% buyer’s premium).

Following the multi-million-pound sale at Sotheby’s in 2015, more items from West Horsley Place, the remarkable Grade I listed mansion in Surrey, are to be sold at auction to raise money for urgent repairs.

Welsh artist Clive Hicks-Jenkins’ recent series of screen-prints are a fitting subject for a January exhibition.

A 17th century portrait of a woman who suffered from a rare congenital condition resulting in excessive hair growth on the body has been acquired by the Wellcome Collection.

Art assembled by Peter Mangold, the late political historian, led a strong line-up of Modern British pictures at Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury.

Multi-million buys may be out of reach but five-figure quality is on offer at top London gallery Richard Green.

It may be strange and surreal, but John Spencer-Churchill’s (1909-92) landscape panorama of the evacuation of Dunkirk is the only depiction of the event known to have been painted by an eyewitness.

Strong competition emerged for an oil sketch for Eugène Delacroix’s 'Liberty Leading the People' at Christie’s in London on December 14.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi set the highest price ever for an artwork sold at auction when it took $400m ($450m with premium) at Christie’s New York on November 15.

The photographic archive of Emile Zola (1840-1902) was offered by Artcurial (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on December 4 with over 90% of the 75 lots changing hands.

Helen Sutcliffe runs the premises of Sutcliffe Galleries in Harrogate. The family-run business has been trading for more than six decades and specialises in paintings from the 18th century to the present day.

The famous photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson are no strangers to salerooms but it is not every day that you find 120 lots being offered from a single-owner collection.

Haute Epoque, the French term given to early, largely pre-Renaissance, works of art, especially sculpture, featured in several Parisian sales in the winter high season.