Auctions

Despite the restrictions on travel and viewing, the market for Chinese works of art has appeared remarkably robust in the year of coronavirus. ATG reports on the highpoints of the recent round of London and UK regional sales

This 12in (30cm) high late Qing famille rose porcelain and hardwood table screen came for sale at Ewbank’s (25% buyer’s premium) in Send, Surrey, on November 12.

As time goes by, an almost imperceptible process seems to take place in the art market where certain artists who were once considered avant garde begin to feel like established names.

Items designed by Josef Hoffmann, leading light of the Wiener Werkstӓtte movement, will feature in a sale in Vienna.

David Sear, author of Roman Coins and their Values, called it “among the most exciting numismatic discoveries of the 21st century, if not of all time”.

In 1592, the Florentine stone carver Cosimo Castrucci (fl.1576-1602) was called to the imperial court in Prague by Rudolph II.

A Lalique glass, enamel and diamond bracelet, brooch and earring suite was sold at Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium) for the first time since it was bought by the Edwardian heiress Florence Evelyn St George (1870-1936).

The auctioneers at Nagel in Stuttgart will have their work cut out at the upcoming sale of Asian art.

Ottoman bead carvers in Istanbul – makers of the garlands of beads known as tesbih and komboloi – were swift to appreciate the potential of Bakelite in c.1910.

Exceptional examples of the glyphic arts – the apotheosis of jewellery collecting during the Grand Tour era – are rising high in the saleroom once more.

Two private collections of the work of John Donald (b.1928) enjoyed a clean sweep at auctions in recent weeks.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

Edinburgh auction offered 1592 book from first European press dedicated to such a typeface.

Estimated at just $5000 or so but sold at $110,000 (£85,270) in an October 2-3 sale at Brunk Auctions (23% buyer’s premium) in Asheville, North Carolina, was an extensive archive of documents and letters relating to the career of Captain James N Sever.

At 2ft 5in (73cm), this Blanc de Chine figure of Guanyin on sale at Lempertz in Cologne on December 15 is unusually large.

This 19th century take on an archaic vessel is one of the objects on sale at Hargesheimer in Düsseldorf on December 5.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.