Fine Art

When the Dorchester Fine Art saleroom Duke’s sold two rediscovered panels of Dominican saints by Fra Angelico for £1.7m, it was one of the best documented events outside the London rooms accompanied by months of pre-sale media coverage.

Demand for contemporary art reached yet another new level of intensity in London’s auction rooms last week when Christie’s and Sotheby’s both posted record totals of nearly £75m for their June evening sales of contemporary works.

In 1914, Dame Laura Knight (1877-1970) was living in Cornwall and enjoying the most fertile period of her career.

THE market for early English portrait miniatures received a sizeable fillip in London last week. The auction record was broken twice within the space of 24 hours with the sale of two iconic images of major figures in British history and this was backed up by a crop of other strong prices for top flight examples from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Just a month after their most successful sale ever, thanks to the consignment of an archive of Francis Bacon’s work, Woking auctioneers Ewbank’s have won another Bacon collection.

More records fall in record NY art sales

Art Deco bronze and ivory dancers inspired by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and other exotic themes have been racing up the price scale in recent months. The reason is rouble power.

Change in the collecting geography at New York’s Imp & Mod spring sales

There’s been plenty of speculation about who might have paid £1.7m plus 17.5 per cent premium for the two recently-rediscovered Fra Angelico (c.1395-1455) panels of Dominican saints at Duke’s of Dorchester on April 19.

For the second time in the space of a week a UK provincial auctioneer was celebrating a million-pound sale of works by one of the world’s most famous artists.

after months of pre-sale coverage in the media, the two recently rediscovered panels of Dominican saints from Fra Angelico’s celebrated 1438-40 high altarpiece for the Church of San Marco in Florence finally came under the hammer at Duke’s of Dorchester last Thursday, when they fetched £1.7m.

Only five Mayfair dealers will participate in this year’s London Sculpture Week (June 14-22), the smallest number since the initiative was launched in 2004.

The subject matter of this mid-14th century gold ground may be unfamiliar to many, but that is no surprise – the treatment is thought to be unique in early Italian painting.

Museums should learn lessons of the 20th century

There was high excitement at The Auction Centre, Leyburn on March 30 when Sean Keating’s Ulysses off Connemara shot to a remarkable £400,000 (plus 15/10 per cent premium), a record for the artist and a house record for Tennants.

Photo-london, the four-year-old specialist photograph fair that takes place annually in May, has a new owner, a new venue and a new slant.

Anonymous artist’s contempt for art market does nothing to dampen demand

THE imminent smoking ban and the government’s attempts to tackle binge drinking wouldn’t have gone down too well with the Reffley Brethren.

Share of places has risen to a quarter as prices have soared, say Artprice

A spectacular sleeper was awoken in Sweden on December 5 when an oil sketch catalogued as in the manner of Peter Paul Rubens sold to a British buyer at SEK16.6m (£1,298,000) amidst speculation it was by the artist himself.