Fine Art

The first day of the December 10-12 sale at Adam Partridge in Macclesfield, Cheshire, included a 2in (5cm) high Fabergé jewelled agate model of a cockerel or rooster.

So-called ‘talc pictures’ or ‘metamorphoses’ were fashionable amusements in European courts in the second half of the 17th century.

Illustrator famous for helping to bring alive the beloved bear preferred his other commissions

Market freshness and good provenance have always been key components in the Old Master sector, and the latest series of auctions in this category underlined how heavily dependent the market remains on the supply of works that have these qualities.

Karl & Faber’s (27% buyer’s premium) latest auction of Old Master prints in Munich was its most successful sale of this type for many decades, achieving several new German records.

A handful of determined bidders were enamoured of a painted wood panel, originally catalogued as 18th or 19th century, which was in the sale held by Scheublein (27% buyer’s premium) in Munich.

Over his career, the Flemish artist Hendrick van Balen (1573-1632) collaborated with a number of other artists, not least Rubens. Another was Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625).

Prints offer an ideal entry point for collectors as top-quality works are attainable at modest prices.

Pocket watches owned by Horatio Nelson, Thomas Hardy and Cuthbert Collingwood and consulted throughout the Battle of Trafalgar were sold together as a single lot in London on December 9.

With works by female artists now having a much higher profile among Old Masters than in the past it was not surprising to see a painting by the famous French portraitist Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842) among the best-sellers in a September sale of works from a country house in Brittany.

To mark the completion of its newly expanded space in the West End’s Cecil Court, Darnley Fine Art is presenting an exhibition on the so-called ‘lost’ Post-Impressionists Robert Deborne (1870-1944) and Henri Ottmann (1877-1927).

Two views of Chelsea Old Church by Walter Greaves (1846-1930) emerged at different salerooms in recent months.

The latest Old Master auctions in London produced the highest total for a December series for seven years.

An oil of a scarlet ibis by Philip Reinagle (1749-1833) is among the works starring at Rafael Valls this month.