Europe

Godwin Swifte, who styled himself as Lord Carlingford, was a member of one of Ireland’s notable families and a maverick of early flight.

The pictorial spread and designer binding shown here feature in a work by the celebrated French-Swiss architect and designer, Le Corbusier.

With ‘on the premises’ country house contents sales now so rare, the more usual practice is for the better pieces to be removed to saleroom bases.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from May 14-25, 2019.

Included in a mixed-discipline sale held in Paris by Daguerre (28% buyer’s premium inc VAT) at Drouot was a Sèvres bough pot in soft paste porcelain.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from May 8-15, 2019.

The highlight of a dedicated ceramics sale held at Drouot by Fraysse (22.17% buyer’s premium) was this large 16 x 22in (41 x 56cm) early French, Moustiers, faience basin made at the Clerissy factory.

Further proof of the success of the dedicated dealer and auction house initiatives promoting Asian art and expertise in Western capitals comes next month in Paris.

Bought by a German collector for €115,000 (£99,140) at an auction in Cologne, a 15th century illustrated account of 'Leben der Heiligen Altväter', or ‘Lives of the Holy Fathers’, was a great rarity.

The art and antiques trade has described the introduction of new controls on the import of cultural goods as a “considerable blow” to the market.

This highly elaborate chest of drawers decorated in boulle marquetry technique with a variety of different figural and foliate motifs featured in the furniture session of a sale at Hampel (29.5% buyer’s premium) in Munich on March 28.

The painter Franz Roubaud (1856-1928) was born in Odessa of French parents and studied painting at the local academy and for several years in Munich. He made a name for himself with huge panoramic paintings and battle scenes.

On May 17, Cologne auction house Lempertz is selling 115 bronze mortars from the 8th-18th centuries.

Short message to a ‘true friend’ after opera debut appearance sells at Berlin auction house.

It is thought that the prestigious Meissen designer Johann Joachim Kaendler drew the inspiration for his teapot in the form of a reclining cockerel from a Chinese model he found in the royal collection in Dresden.

The German artist Heinrich Zille (1858-1929) was known for his caricatures and humorous and sometimes very blunt portrayals of the lower classes and demi-monde in Berlin around the beginning of the 20th century: his so-called milieu-studies.

Two highly different examples of sculptural art caused the greatest stir at the sale of works of art at Kinsky (25% buyer’s premium) in Vienna on April 8-10. First up was the 3ft 5in (1.05m) high lime-wood sculpture of the Madonna with Child, flanked by two angels.