Germany

One of the great Märklin rarities came for sale at the latest auction at antique toy specialist Lankes Auktionshaus in Krefeld in western Germany.

Sigismund III Vasa (1566-1632) was a man of many parts. His father was King John III of Sweden; his mother Catherine was the daughter of King Sigismund I of Poland.

Vase and clock produced around the same time nevertheless display significant design variation

The distinctive 'Portrait of a Lady' by the Hungarian artist Imre Goth was star of the show at an auction at Mehlis (24% buyer’s premium) in Plauen, Germany.

On numerous occasions, Théodore Deck, who has often been called the father of Art Nouveau ceramics, collaborated with the sculptor and designer Joseph Chéret, brother of the painter and lithographer Jules Chéret.

In 1896, Vilmós Zsolnay, director of the eponymous ceramics factory in the south-western Hungarian city of Pécs in Hungary, presented his newly invented Eosin lustre glaze at the National Millenium Exhibition in Budapest.

Galerie Kornfeld in Bern devoted the evening session at its auction on September 11 to a remarkable collection of prints by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. It was rewarded by some equally remarkable prices.

At a time when many of his painter colleagues were drawn to Italy for their artistic inspiration, Johann Moritz Rugendas, who was born in Augsburg in 1802, headed for more distant lands.

Having produced tableware for over 25 years, the Bavarian porcelain manufacturer Rosenthal established an artistic department in 1908.

When Martin Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus design school, set out the prerequisites for its products, he reduced it to the formulas ‘practical, enduring, affordable, beautiful’, and ‘form follows function’.

An unusual piece of very early Meissen is coming up for sale at Metz in Heidelberg on October 18.

Provenance to a noble family and market freshness generate impressive results for rarities

This unusually large giltwood figure of Guanyin, the Chinese goddess of compassion and mercy, attracted numerous bidders to Nagel’s (24.5% buyer’s premium) sale of Asian art on June 6-7 in Stuttgart.

A classic example of fin-de-siècle eroticism caught the eye of several collectors at Hampel (29.5% buyer’s premium) on June 26 in Munich.

Piece made by St Petersburg factory was produced to mark 1827 allied triumph over Ottoman forces

According to tradition, supported by handwritten documents, this 19th century, gold-mounted micromosaic brooch was given by Prussian King Frederick William III to his second wife Auguste von Harrach, Princess of Liegnitz.

Textiles from the nomadic Tekke tribe of Turkestan were highly sought after at Rippon Boswell’s (25% buyer’s premium) May 31 auction in Wiesbaden.

When the situation demanded it, German consular officials in the tropics were required to wear a ceremonial helmet.

A watercolour portrait of the 19th century Egyptian scholar Mohammed-el-Chabassy was one of the surprising high points at a recent auction of 16th to 19th century drawings, held by Bassenge (25% buyer’s premium) in Berlin.

Descendents of Bauhaus artist finally reach settlement allowing first 22 works to come for sale in Cologne