Fine Art

This signed William Scott (1913-89) lithograph of Mousehole harbour in Cornwall was spotted during a furniture valuation before being entered into Chorley’s latest sale in Prinknash Abbey Park, Gloucestershire.

KNOCKED down at £19m, Francis Bacon’s Portrait of Henrietta Moraes was the top lot of London’s Contemporary art auction series last week by some margin.

PRICES for Henry Moore (1898-1986) have been rising consistently in recent years, but the performance of this large-scale bronze sculpture at auction last week dramatically lifted the artist to previously unseen levels.

REPORTS have emerged that the Qatari Royal family has paid a record amount for any work of art ever sold.

THIS alabaster sculpture by Barbara Hepworth (1903-75), entitled Two Rotating Forms II and dated to 1966, began the new year in style for Sworders.

THE strong competition that emerged for some of the most exciting pictures at the latest Old Master sales in London helped lift the series and compensated for the lack of interest at lower levels.

SOTHEBY’S are to change the format of their sculpture works of art sales in London.

A new auction record for a medieval work of art was established at Christie's Paris

COMPETITION between major collectors and new players in the market for L.S. Lowry saw a host of dramatic prices in London last week as Christie's offered 14 works from the collection of the late hotel magnate Lord Forte.

A SERIES of key consignments at the latest Contemporary art auctions helped lift the mood of the art market in New York.

THE latest Impressionist & Modern art auctions in New York finished much better than they started.

SETTING a house record at Cotswolds saleroom Tayler & Fletcher and helping them to their highest ever sale total, this small and previously unrecorded portrait by Anders Zorn (1860-1920), fetched £82,000 in Cheltenham.

WHILE most reports in the media focused on the record price paid for a pair of Queen Victoria's undergarments, Lyon & Turnbull's sale of works from the Forbes Collection raised the more serious question of the current state of the Victorian art market.

IT could have been one of the sleepers of the century had it not been recognised and swiftly withdrawn from a Bonhams Oxford auction.

THE final lot of 233 offered at Michael Bowman's latest sale at the Chudleigh Town Hall, Devon was this limewood carving of a goose wing attributed to the Anglo-German artist Sir Hubert von Herkomer (1849-1914).

Prints by Edward Wadsworth (1889-1949) are not a common sight on the market, but the Yorkshire-born artist who became a leading exponent of Vorticism was a prominent printmaker in the early stage of his career.

THE Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts have decided to dissolve the controversial Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board in early 2012.

A LONG-running anti-trust complaint against the Andy Warhol Foundation – one that caused them to close the authentication service – concerned a work denied twice by their board.

In the wider world, the photographer Nadar (Gaspard Félix Tournachon) is best known for the fact that it was in his former studio on the Boulevard des Capucines that the Impressionists held their first group exhibition in 1874.

LONDON’S Frieze week opened with more cautious buying this year as concerns about the impact of the current economic turbulence in Europe and the US were much in evidence.