Old Masters

Here we ask the dealers who participated in ATG's Round Table discussion the reasons why they choose to stand at the fair and ask them to pick out a star item they are taking this year.

An oil on canvas by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (Seville, 1617-82) which has recently been examined and published by Dr Benito Navarrate Prieto, and incorporated into the body of Murillo’s work, is a highlight of the next paintings auction at Ansorena, Madrid, on March 6-8.

Chiswick Auctions (25/12% buyer’s premium) has held its first dedicated Old Masters sale, capitalising on the void left by Christie’s South Kensington’s closure last year.

Old Master specialist Derek Johns became a director of Sotheby’s in 1968 and head of its Old Master paintings department in 1974. He became an independent art dealer in 1981. He now deals from Bury Street after many years on Duke Street.

A previously unrecorded painting attributed to Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, the Italian Old Master known as il Guercino (1591-1666), has been consigned to Cambridge auction house Cheffins.

An auction series devoted to Old Master paintings, drawings and works of art has long been a feature of the first month of the year in New York for Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

The traditional Christmas Old Master series in London provided the first test of the market since the spectacular sale of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi in New York three weeks before.

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.