Auctions

Dealer events have traditionally dominated the early September calendar in Paris but auction houses are catching up.

Briefly noted in ATG No 2353 was a copy of Through the Looking Glass sold for £30,000 at Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9%) on July 10, where it was part of the eighth and latest sale of books from ‘The Library of an English Bibliophile’.

Selling above estimate at Jacobs & Hunt (22% buyer’s premium) in Liss, Hampshire, was a life-size bronze by Sydney Harpley (1927-92) titled Umbrella Girl, below.

A simple image titled 'Pony' by British artist Patrick Caulfield is the highest-estimated lot ever to be offered at south London saleroom Roseberys.

This watercolour, below, by Frederic Whiting (1874-1962) took a multi-estimate £2500 at Thomson Roddick’s (15% buyer’s premium) Edinburgh saleroom on August 9.

Outselling the usual favourite Bond movie posters, a British Quad for Get Carter starring Michael Caine topped the 69-lot specialist sale of movie posters at Ewbank’s (22.5% buyer’s premium).

For a Communist tyrant, Joseph Stalin remains remarkably popular in the capitalist world of UK auctions – the latest evidence provided by a rare cast bronze death mask offered at Canterbury Auction Galleries (24% buyer’s premium).

This Old Master painting, above, of The Adoration of the Magi in the manner of Italian painter Vincenzo Carducci (c.1576-1638) led a recent Dorset sale.

A ship painting by the artist regarded as the first great Trinidadian painter, Michel-Jean Cazabon (1813-88), surfaced for sale at Cumbrian auction house PFK earlier this month.

An old and respected provenance can still hold sway even in no longer buoyant sectors of the market.

After 49 years of trading in Manhattan, ceramics and glass dealer Leo Kaplan Ltd closed its doors earlier this year.

The US-China trade row provides an unwelcome distraction to the September edition of New York’s 'Asian Art Week' (AAW).

Pre-Raphaelite artist shunned and persecuted in his time is now a popular auction choice.