Watercolours

A British collector has reportedly bought a watercolour, ‘A lady with a Minstrel’ from 1874, by the Victorian artist Richard Dadd on eBay for £200.

The art market in the New Year traditionally gets off to a rather slow start with just a scattering of fairs, dealer shows and auctions taking place in the first half of January.

The portrait of Jane Austen by James Andrews that will appear on the new £10 note in 2017 was offered by Sotheby’s as the star turn of their traditional end-of-year English literature and history sale.

The ‘Watercolours’ fair returns for its fifth year at the Science Museum, from February 6-8.

The most stunning price of London’s summer auction season came at Christie’s last week when the competition that emerged on ‘Love among the Ruins’ by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-98) was one of the strongest ever seen for a Victorian picture.

Collectables specialist Fred Wyrley-Birch at Anderson & Garland was seriously impressed by this micromosaic plaque, offered for sale at Westerhope, near Newcastle in their latest fine art sale. And so were buyers.

Mellors and Kirk of Nottingham included a watercolour by Walter Langley (1852-1922) in their fine art sale on September 20-21.

Once she was Picasso’s muse, now she is capping her own career of more than 25 years as an artist with a three-week exhibition at The Fosse Gallery in Stow-on-the-Wold.

Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury are selling the work of some of the most collectable British artists of the 20th century in their paintings auction on September 19.

EXHIBITION: The bicentenary of the birth of Edward Lear will see works from private collections go on display for the first time during an exhibition at the Ashmolean.

There were several highlights at Bonhams’ (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) latest portrait miniatures sale in Knightsbridge on June 28.

Lyon & Turnbull are to sell the contents of the New York home of Donald and Eleanor Taffner, important collectors of works by the Glasgow School.

In 1922, Beatrix Potter, with her most famous little books already behind her, was persuaded by Anne Carroll Moore of the New York Public Library to produce a book of illustrated nursery rhymes.

Three pictures of London Zoo, produced within a few years of its opening to the public, were sold by Lawrences of Crewkerne on July 6.

Only the day after a specialist sale at Bonhams, the June 29 auction at Strides of Chichester included two 3 x 2in (7 x 5.5cm) watercolour-on-vellum portraits by greats of the Commonwealth/Carolean age that trumped anything seen on Bond Street.

Pictures, books and ephemera from the Great Tew estate in Oxfordshire will be offered for sale at Holloway’s in Banbury on July 10.

Duncan Campbell was a remarkable and unconventional dealer. His gallery in Thackeray Street, Kensington, was packed with pretty much anything that caught his eye, whether it was paintings, prints, pottery, furniture, or tribal art.

On May 19, Channel Island auctioneers Martel Maides are set to offer the first single-owner house sale on Jersey for almost a decade with an on-site 500-lot sale of The Priors in St Saviours.

A studio collection of works by Charles James Adams (1859-1931), best known for his animal pictures, is to be offered at The Cotswold Auctions’ specialist picture sale on May 18 in Cirencester.

IN February we revealed how Queen Victoria was an accomplished artist, but now her daughter’s skills have been highlighted by a Surrey auction.