Europe

An enticingly estimated drawing by the 17th century English court portraitist Sir Peter Lely offered for sale in a French provincial auction drew a flurry of attention from English trade and private bidders last week. It was propelled to over 20-times its estimate.

Alain Lesieutre was one of the dealers and authors who pioneered the revival of interest in Art Nouveau and Deco in the second half of the 20th century.

Featuring more than 70 decorative or historiated initials in full contemporary colour, a fine copy of a Biblia germanica printed by Gunther Zainer of Augsburg in 1475-76 sold for a record €120,000 (£103,450) in a Ketterer Kunst (20% buyer’s premium) sale.

A selection of drawings by the French painter-explorer André Maire (1898-1984) comes to the Dumonteil Gallery in Paris for the exhibition Indochina, Meeting Men and Gods.

This Chinese gilt-bronze figure of Guandi is the catalogue cover lot for the next auction at Veritas in Lisbon, on June 27-28.

The tribal art auction to be held at Drouot by Binoche et Giquello on June 22 features a mix of African and Oceanic artefacts and will include two lots that formerly belonged to the artist Tristran Tzara.

Cleaned, restored and recently rebound in brown buckskin, together with a 1966 reprint, a rare 1495 Venetian first of Avicenna’s Metaphysica made €26,000 (£22,260) in a Reiss & Sohn (18% buyer’s premium) sale. The price was slightly under estimate but a record nonetheless.

Among several unusual clocks included in the 328-lot dedicated auction to be held in Paris on June 26 by Chayette et Cheval is this 3¾ x 2¾in (9.5 x 7cm) reveil briquet (lighter alarm clock).

A small vibrant work by Jack Butler Yeats (1871-1957) from the collection of Irish art assembled by the late businesswoman Gillian Bowler topped Adam’s sale on May 31.

Recent Old Master paintings in Vienna and Cologne have yielded some predicted but also unexpected results including a high price for a work by a German better known for his poems and plays than his paintings.

Dublin dealer sells an Irish selection as he hands the reins of the shop over to his son.

German salerooms move series to Austria and Belgium in the wake of cultural goods law...

“A masterpiece of Flemish book illumination,” said Reiss & Sohn (18% buyer’s premium) of a rare manuscript compendium of texts on chivalry, heraldry, nobility and the rules of war offered in its May 16-18 sales series.

Spring sale results provide promising upturn as Irish art market shows signs of recovery.

Bid to a double-estimate €42,000 (£36,290) in a Ketterer Kunst (20% buyer’s premium) sale of May 22 was a very rare, 1566-67 Lisbon first of 'Chronica da felicissimo rei dom Emanuel…'

The Malayan artist Cheong Soo Pieng (1917-83) is hardly a household name in Europe. Virtually all of his paintings that have sold at auction in recent decades came under the hammer in Hong Kong or Singapore.