Old Masters

Two-sided picture now heading to Dijon museum after being given definite attribution

This painted wooden sign dated to the 18th century was one of the highlights of a sale held by the Hôtel des Ventes de Nîmes (22.2% buyer’s premium) in the southern French city.

Five bidders – two Americans, one French and one Cypriot – competed to secure a small 15th centry devotional oil on panel of the Virgin and Child by the Italian artist Lazzaro Bastiani.

In the second half of the 19th century, the Normandy coast became a popular destination for Parisians keen to make an excursion from the capital and to enjoy the new leisure activity of sea bathing.

A painting by the artist known as Salai, one of Leonardo da Vinci’s closest pupils, proved to be the toast of the latest sale of Old Master and 19th century paintings and sculpture at Artcurial (25/20/12% buyer’s premium).

Lempertz in Cologne is selling 23 paintings from the collection put together by the aviation entrepreneur Hinrich Bischoff and his wife, Ingrid.

A painting from the workshop of Peter Paul Rubens making its second appearance at Dorotheum (28/25/22/18% buyer’s premium) in the space of a decade was the best-seller in the November 10 Old Masters auction in Vienna.

One of the highlights at Ivoire Angers on December 10 will be this small 9 x 13in (23 x 32cm) Flemish school oil on cradled panel.

A painting by the celebrated landscape painter Joseph Vernet (1714-89) depicting Tivoli near Rome which has not been seen since the 19th century is making an appearance in Sotheby’s Paris rooms on December 3.

This 15th century painting of the Virgin and Child was discovered by Léonard Pomez of the Hôtel des Ventes de Troyes during the course of a valuation at a property near Troyes and comes up for auction in the city on November 27.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Artcurial’s latest staging of its biannual sales of Old Master and 19th century paintings, drawings and sculpture will take place on November 18 as a live, behind-closed-doors auction at the firm’s Paris rooms.

In the 1620s, Sebastian Vrancx was among the most prominent painters working in Antwerp. He was famed for his landscapes and village scenes, but was also renowned for his often drastically detailed depictions of battles.

Swiss-born artist Samuel Hieronymus Grimm (1733-94) completed his watercolour of The Berkshire House in Putney in 1772 after arriving in London four years earlier.

A number of six-figure prices for rare and interesting items were achieved when French auction house Rouillac (24% buyer’s premium inc VAT) staged its 32nd Garden Party sale.

Latest group of Exbury House paintings from ‘the great collectors’ lives up to the billing

Turin dealership Caretto & Occhinegro Gallery has sold a previously unpublished oil by Jan Matsys (c.1510-75) to the Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice.

Two Old Master oil on panel paintings by 17th century Dutch artists featuring very different subjects were best-sellers in large mixed-discipline sales held in Paris and Monaco.

A high-quality veduta of Venice by one of Canaletto’s followers was the runaway star at Chorley’s (22.5/15/12.5/10% buyer’s premium) two-day auction in Gloucestershire.