Europe

The incoming EU Regulation 2019/880 on the import of cultural goods, which became effective from June 28, continues to cause concern for the art and antiques market, with TEFAF the latest to warn of its impact.

The demand for a well-documented genre painting by the 17th century Flemish artist Jan Steen surprised the auctioneers at Döbritz (26% buyer’s premium) in Frankfurt.

An unusual, possibly unique stereo viewer from the last decade of the 19th century attracted numerous bids at Auction Team Breker (21.8% buyer’s premium) in Cologne.

Numerous bidders at a recent Mehlis (24% buyer’s premium) auction in Plauen were not prepared to let a late 19th century vase by Emile Gallé get away for the estimated €350.

A spring sale at Artcurial Beurret Bailly Widmer (25% buyer’s premium) in Basel was devoted to works of art from an impressive, wide-ranging Swiss collection.

A recently discovered floral still-life by Jan Davidsz de Heem sold for €2.8m.

Roger Godchaux is regarded as one of the most accomplished French animalier sculptors of the first half of the 20th century.

The workers who were given the task in 1869 of demolishing a medieval patrician house in the Bavarian city of Regensburg found much more than they had expected.

Since his inception in 1939, Batman, the Caped Crusader, has never really been out of fashion.

One of the star lots at an auction of African and Oceanic works of art held by Zemanek-Münster (25% buyer’s premium) in Würzburg was a dance mask of the Telei people in the Buin district of Bougainville, one of the Solomon Islands.

An unusual 19th century gold watch by the Swiss maker Sylvain Mairet caught the eye of numerous bidders at a recent sale at Dr Crott (25% buyer’s premium) in Mannheim.

A complicated astronomical carriage clock by Breguet & Fils, first sold in January 1826, went dramatically over the odds at Antiquorum (25% buyer’s premium) in Geneva.

The Bohemian glassmaker Leopold Blaschka’s fascination with marine life began in 1853, when the ship in which he was travelling to the US became becalmed off the Azores.

In its day, the Parisian porcelain manufacture founded by the Austrian born Jean Népomucène Hermann Nast in 1783 was regarded as a worthy competitor to Sèvres.

The Salvator Mundi drawing attributed to Leonardo da Vinci’s workshop which sold for €500,000 (ATG No 2692) was not the only sought-after work at Dorotheum’s (28/25/22% buyer’s premium) spring Old Master sale.

Works by the tragically short-lived German artist Franz Horny are by necessity relatively rare.

Meissen decoration linked to mining is not a rare sight but a cachepot with cavern scene is sought after