International

The multi-talented Deco designer and artist Jean Dunand (1877-1942) is one of the names celebrated in Christie’s selected design sale in Paris on November 14 with around 20 pieces in different media.

At a time when catering for niche interests is a profitable path for auctioneers, recent sales in Scotland, Ireland and England have shown that the furniture market can still come to life – provided it meets three criteria.

Fourteen unpublished paintings by Maurice Utrillo, the artist renowned for quintessential Paris street scenes, will be coming up for sale on November 23.

A sale of contents of four homes belonging to the late Pierre Bergé is to go under the hammer at Sotheby’s Paris rooms in association with auction house Pierre Bergé & Associes.

An ensemble of fans both Oriental and Occidental is the subject of the dedicated sale organised by Coutau-Bégarie that takes place at Drouot on November 19. Examples date from the 17th century through to the early years of the 20th.

A classic Art Nouveau display cabinet by Emile Gallé is part of a collection of furniture by Gallé and Majorelle assembled over half a century ago to be offered for sale by Ivoire Reims on November 18.

The dust jacket is far from pristine, but this 1933 first of The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas is signed and inscribed by both its subject and her lifelong partner, the writer Gertrude Stein.

This little oil on canvas showing a seated lion watching the setting sun from the top of a rocky plateau is evocatively titled Les Deux Majestés and is a work by the 19th century Orientalist Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904).

Representing just a fraction of the international art market and often overshadowed by the demand for 2D art, Irish sculpture has undergone a quieter recovery.

Tribal art is very much a strength of the Paris art market, with sales taking place throughout the year.

Black Rock Galleries in Greenwich, Connecticut received bids up to $388,000 (plus 18% buyer’s premium) for a bronze it believes is Buste de Saint Jean-Baptiste, a previously lost lifetime cast by Rodin.

This small-scale, 17th-18th century, Italian vanitas of a skull carved from Cararra marble measures 7½ x 9½in (19 x 24cm).

Was this the gun that John James Audubon (1785-1851) used to create the world’s most expensive natural history book?

While demand is encouraging, a scarcity of high-quality work is hitting the supply side

Eleven years after John Kennedy Toole committed suicide, fellow writer Walker Percy was the man who ensured that his only book, A Confederacy of Dunces, finally got into print.

Catching the eye in a German auction was a fine example of the most beautiful of all piscatorial plate books.