Bust

This summer’s ‘Temps Fort’ sales in the French capital have thrown up an usually strong contingent of sculpture.

Paintings and smaller works of art dating back to the time the first Duke of Wellington moved into the house given to him by a grateful nation have been stolen.

THIS marble portrait bust of Ann Borrett by the 18th century sculptor Henry Cheere was stolen from the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Shoreham, Kent at the end of January.

IT may have been an exceptional piece that generated an equally exceptional level of presale interest but, even still, few people present at Christie's Paris for the sale of Amedeo Modigliai's (1884-1920) Tête were expecting it to become the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction in France.

THIS lifesize bust of the actor Charles Dance has been stolen from a car only days before it was due to be entered for exhibition.

MUSSOLINI’s son-in-law and foreign minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano, would have done well to heed the imagery of this black glazed terracotta head when another version of it came into his possession.

IT was a matter of success breeding success for Oxfordshire auctioneers Holloway’s in March. Late last year they sold an 18th century ivory bust, possibly of Handel, for £29,000, and when the owner of a tiny medieval ivory panel read of it in ATG No 1671, January 8, he decided to offer it in the Banbury rooms.

A more academic ivory carving than anything at Kidson-Trigg’s sale was this unsigned but fine quality 6 3/4in (17.5cm) portrait bust, right, offered at the Banbury rooms of Holloways (15% buyer’s premium) on November 30.

AT 10.41 on the morning of August 25, 1875, to the sounds of Rule Britannia, Captain Matthew Webb emerged from the cold and choppy waters of the Channel. It had taken him 21 hours and 41 minutes. He had covered close to 40 miles. But he had become the first man to swim from English to French soil.

European Works of Art: There was no real surprise about the star lot in Sotheby’s December 10 works of art sale. The piece that attracted plenty of attention at the pre-sale viewing and made far and away the highest price in the 177-lot gathering was this c.1520-25 terracotta bust of the Virgin and Child by Il Riccio, which, at £3m, singlehandedly accounted for two thirds of the auction’s entire £4.47m total.