Europe

A 1610 first of Galileo’s Sidereus nuncius, a foundation work in modern astronomy, sold for €320,000 (£278,400) on June 15 at Minerva Auctions (25/18% buyer’s premium) of Rome.

Bavaria is the most popular tourist destination in Germany and for more than 20 years the historic city of Bamberg has hosted a summer event in which a dozen prestigious dealers and galleries take part in a joint sales exhibition, held in their own premises.

Dealers in and collectors of Asian art were spoilt for choice around the middle of June in Europe. As well as the Asian sale series in Paris (see last week’s ATG, No 2300), a vast selection of works came up for sale in Zurich, Cologne, Brussels, Salzburg and Stuttgart.

A number of the French auction rooms have released their sales figures for the first half of the year, with Christie’s Paris operation taking the top slot.

Andreas Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica is one of those rare epoch-making works, a publication that changes everything in its field and sets a standard for others to emulate.

At the Drouot auction centre in June around 3000 items of Asian art went under the hammer in a series of 20 auctions that were either dedicated sales or featured substantial Asian sections.

The island of St Helena featured in a folding plate from a 1598, first English edition of Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s famous Itinerario – published as Discours of Voyages into ye Easte & West Indies – offered by Ketterer Kunst (20% buyer’s premium) on May 22.

Fleur Callegari has joined the team of Les Enluminures as art director. She will be based in the Paris gallery of this firm which specialises in medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, miniatures and jewellery (the gallery has other bases in Chicago and New York).

Like many of the world’s major art markets these days, Paris concentrates activity in the Asian art field into series at specific times of the year in an attempt to attract those all-important buyers from Mainland China.

For previous generations of artist jewellers, from René Lalique to Andrew Grima, retail sales and private commissions were everything. Typically it was only much later in the collecting lifecycle, after a period of posthumous reassessment and rediscovery, that their work appeared at auction with any great regularity.

Art books in a Ketterer Kunst (20% buyer’s premium) sale of May 22 included one of 15 deluxe copies of a 1950 edition of Harry Roskolenko’s Paris Poems, containing an original watercolour by Zau Wou-Ki and an extra suite of his lithographed illustrations. It sold at €42,000 (£36,240).

Promoted in a catalogue issued by Fonsie Mealy (20/25% buyer’s premium) for its May 20 sale as something “for the collector who has (almost) everything”, an autograph section from James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake was sold at €27,000 (£23,480).

It is high season for sales in Paris and the Drouot auction centre, home to 75 firms, is busy with its usual roster across all disciplines.

This rather unsettling woodcut illustration shown above, an almost surreal depiction of an amputation, is taken from from a 1515, Grüninger of Strasbourg edition of Hieronymous Brunschwig’s Das buch der wund Artzeny. Handwirkung der Cirurgia.

The Brussels Vintage Market was launched in 2010 at the delightfully named café Madame Moustache with about a dozen vintage vendors.

The panther is a big cat much favoured by sculptors – not only the animaliers but also those who searched for a stylishly sleek motif during the early 20th century, where it can be seen depicted on screens and vases as well as in the round.

ATG's selection of upcoming sale highlights.