Europe

Although the tradition of wood-carving existed in the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge) in eastern Germany since the 1100s, it was not until the 19th century that the production of intricately crafted wooden folk-art became a fully fledged house industry.

Good sales and happy exhibitors as France’s showpiece fair moves from November to mid-September

At the 23rd edition of the Tribal Art Fair Amsterdam (TAF), one highlight is this Angolan take on a Regency sabre-leg chair, carved c.1850 and priced at £2200 with Adam Prout.

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.

Milan is the latest stop in Thaddaeus Ropac’s expanding network of art galleries, with a new space opening this autumn in the Palazzo Belgioioso.

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