Fine Art

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.

THIS rare-to-the-market 1913 Dieppe painting by Camden Town Group painter Charles Ginner (1878-1952) was recently rediscovered in an important Canadian collection.

THE existence of the elephant – “nature’s great masterpiece... the only harmless great thing”, to use John Donne’s famous description – was well known to medieval Europeans, but captive pachyderms had disappeared from the continent shortly after the demise of the Roman Empire.

Modern British art played its part in the recent London print sales when ‘The Merry-Go-Round’ by Cyril Power (1872-1951) drew strong bidding at Sotheby’s on September 27 and ‘Adonis in Y fronts’, a 1963 screenprint by Richard Hamilton (1922-2011), led the day at Christie’s South Kensington on September 20.

Becoming the most expensive painting ever sold in Ireland, A Fair Day, Mayo by Jack Butler Yeats (1871-1957) was knocked down at €1m (£917,430) at Adam's lastest sale in Dublin.

STITCH holes in a volume held by a Polish museum have added a new layer of evidence in establishing a disputed drawing as an important work by Leonardo da Vinci.

DESPITE the uncertain economic conditions that have cooled the art market in Australia, last month saw a new high for one the country’s most highly regarded artists.

TWO men have been charged with handling stolen goods following the recovery of a number of pictures from the Halewood area of Liverpool.

LONG before this picture came to light, Salvator Mundi was a known work by Leonardo recorded as either lost or destroyed.

A SCULPTURE has been returned to its former home more than 70 years after it was looted during the Blitz from a bombed London church.

Making a record price for any Venetian view painting at auction, Francesco Guardi's (1712-1793) monumental View of the Rialto Bridge, Looking North, from the Fondamenta del Carbon sold for £23.8m hammer at Sotheby's Old Master evening sale on July 7.

THE anticipated highlight of Christie’s ‘Exceptional Sale’ on July 7, a rediscovered bronze by Adriaen de Vries (d.1626), was withdrawn from sale at the last minute.

A PICTURE purchased at Sotheby’s Chatsworth ‘Attic’ sale last year has become the centre of an attribution debate after being re-ascribed to Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641) by a leading London dealership.

BILLED as “the greatest collection of Modern British Art ever to come to the market”, the sale of the Evill-Frost collection at Sotheby’s in London did not disappoint.

WHEN a grand, photographically illustrated record of the Great Exhibition of 1851 was planned by the Royal Commissioners and Executive Committee, they nonetheless kept a tight grip on the exhibition purse strings.

THE latest round of Russian art sales in London put in a consistent performance as auctioneers’ totals again benefited from a series of £1m-plus prices. Demand, however, remained selective with selling rates noticeably patchy.

PAINTINGS may have provided the large bulk of the money raised in last week’s Russian sales, but the auctions also provided the usual glut of works of art, Fabergé and icons.