Europe

This year, Munich auction house Ketterer (32/27/22% buyer’s premium) is marking its 70th anniversary and the evening sale provided plenty of opportunities for celebration.

Viennese auction house Tiberius (27% buyer’s premium) recently sold the inventory of Laudon Castle, a privately owned, moated baroque residence on the outskirts of the Austrian capital.

Recent sales show the appetite for Chinese art from bidders with deep pockets is not at all diminished

Nagel’s (29.5% buyer’s premium) first sale dedicated to Fine Arts and Luxury in Stuttgart obviously caught the mood of the bidders.

Instantly recognisable and with a perfect provenance, a painting by Salvador Dalí (1904-89) more than lived up to its expectations at a sale held by Artcurial Beurret Bailly Widmer (22% buyer’s premium).

In recent years, there has been an upsurge in interest for works by Adolph Menzel (see also ATG No 2649), whose works often go way above the guides and achieve unexpected six-figure prices.

Sometime c.1900, a craftsman or accomplished amateur spent a lot of time building or converting a 6ft 7in (2m) cupboard into a fully fitted dolls’ house.

Swiss collectors were in a generous mood at Koller’s (25/22/15% buyer’s premium) recent Zurich auction.

Examples of products by Viennese factory founded 10 years after Meissen prove popular purchases

Works on paper by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) are regularly strong sellers at Austrian auctions, but even so, the result for one of his coloured pencil drawings at a Dorotheum (30/25% buyer’s premium) sale in Vienna was quite a surprise.

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) epitomised the power of words and, on June 25, that is what bidders had the chance to own in the form of those penned by the political and spiritual leader himself in a letter to his friend, South African architect Hermann Kallenbach (1871-1945).

A pair of pistols Napoleon Bonaparte supposedly intended to use on himself after defeat sold for €1.69m (£1.4m) including buyer’s premium at auction house Osenat in Fontainebleau, France.

On July 2, Vienna auction house Tiberius (27% buyer’s premium) sold the inventory of Laudon Castle, a privately owned, moated baroque residence on the outskirts of the Austrian capital.

Himalayan gilt metal statuettes featured prominently among the best-sellers in several Drouot sales including a number of modestly estimated examples that were pursued to way past their guides.

A lot that made far more than expected at Drouot’s latest Asian art sales was this large circular blue and white dish which came up at Theirry de Maigret (30% buyer’s premium inc tax).

These two very different screens were among the notable results recorded in the Asian sales at Drouot.