Auctioneers

A drawing offered at a Paris auction with an attribution to Italian Renaissance painter Giovanni Francesco Penni (1488-1528) was hammered down at €1.13m (£980,000).

A large oil on panel map by MacDonald Gill celebrating the presence of stationer WH Smith on the British high street in the 1920s was hammered down at £50,000 in Gloucestershire.

At the turn of the 20th century, work by Italian émigré Andrew Grima (1921-2007) or the London jeweller Kutchinsky was on the periphery of the collecting world – still languishing in the bottom of jewellery boxes or, worse, the melting pot.

In the 1980s, the 3ft 7in x 2ft 9in (1.1m x 85cm) canvas of Saint Bartholomew being offered by Dorotheum in Vienna on April 30 was tentatively ascribed to Caravaggio. The treatment of light and shadow and the extreme naturalism in the portrayal certainly indicate a proximity to the revolutionary artist.

Estimated at just £50-80, an Alice Davis Hitchcock medallion sold for £3000 (plus 20% buyer’s premium) at a Spink auction in London on April 10.

This trio of clocks – all classic collectors’ pieces – went well above estimate at spring sales.

Despite the general controversy about the material – one that has momentarily taken a back seat as Brexit eats parliamentary time – an exceptional ivory work of art still has the capacity to impress in the saleroom.

Detailed down to pneumatic tyres, knock-off hub caps and rack-and-pinion steering, the clockwork toy of Alfa Romeo’s P2, the world-beating racing car between 1924-30, was produced by CIJ (Compagnie Industrielle du Jouet) from 1924-35.

Something of a roll call for the great and good across the British 19th-20th century arts scene, Lyon & Turnbull’s (25% buyer’s premium) Decorative Arts: Design Since 1860 sale included such names as George Washington Jack, Sir Alfred Gilbert, Christopher Dresser, William de Morgan and Robert Bartlett.

This Thomas Sidney Cooper (1803- 1902) cattle landscape resurfaced at an auction in Leominster after a century in the same collection.

Bid to £19,700 in a recent sale was one of 100 signed, large paper firsts of Oscar Wilde’s 'The Importance of Being Earnest' published by Leonard Smithers in 1899.

A Victorian hardstone and gold necklace and similar brooch sold for an unexpected £7500 (estimate £600-800) at Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne on April 11.

George Catlin’s watercolour sketches of North American Indians, reported in ATG No 2387, were the star turns as far as original artworks were concerned at Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on March 28. However, two original, signed caricatures by Max Beerbohm also brought good results.

First published in 1936, The Negro Travellers’ Green Book was a once indispensable guide for African-Americans in the age of segregation.

A collaborative portrait between two revered 19th century equestrian painters will lead a sale of sporting art at Essex saleroom Sworders on April 30.

Drawings Week in the French capital included a wide variety of styles, eras and value. Pictured here is a selection of highlights and some more affordable items from the vast array of works on paper of all types offered during Drawings Week in Paris in late March.

In the proud tradition of UK provincial auction houses, the 2000-lot, three-day sale at Mitchells (20% buyer’s premium) offered a world of artefacts from way beyond its Lakeland base of Cockermouth.

Given that the sale ran to a huge 1139 lots, the April 2-4 dispersal in Harrogate of the first part of the library of Robert James Hayhurst may be considered to have done well in achieving a selling rate of 85% at that gathering of Elzevir and other early printed works.