Auctions

Less than six months after they announced the discovery of an unpublished Leonardo drawing, the French auction house Tajan has revealed another major artistic discovery – a pair of paintings by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) that last appeared in the late 18th century. Both the Leonardo and the Fragonards have been declared National Treasures by the French State.

Major dealers remain confident about the market for top-level English 18th century ceramics. At lower levels, however, the disappearance of so many dedicated collectors continues to take its toll.

Coming up trumps at Stamford auctioneers Batemans (20% buyer’s premium) on May 6 was a full pack of 52 Georgian playing cards.

Many of the most famous artists and designers of the Art Deco era were employed to decorate the interiors of the luxury liner SS Normandie, a virtual floating palace to that most glamorous of inter-war design movements.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period May 18-24, 2017. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

Seventy years ago, councils around the UK launched Pictures for Schools, a scheme to bring original works of art into the classroom.

Watercolours by the polar explorer Apsley Cherry-Garrard (1886-1959) were discovered among thousands of works from Stanley Studios in Chelsea.

The autograph sale held by Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) in New York on May 4 included a musical quotation in the hand of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the theme from the finale of his Orchestral Suite No.3 in G Major (Op.55), which sold for $14,000 (£10,855).

An age away from the controversy, skulduggery and sky-high prices that have too often characterised the antiquities market of late, the world of the quiet academic’s study came to the Macclesfield rooms of Adam Partridge (15% buyer’s premium) on April 6-7.

MADAM – I read with interest your story about Evelyn Dunbar’s Joseph’s Dream, which set a world-record price for the artist of £73,500 (£60,000 hammer) at Cheffins on May 11 (ATG No 2292).

A lamp from a wagon that once travelled a 50-mile stretch of track linking the docks of Cardiff to the collieries of the south Wales valleys was hammered down in Bristol at £6300 (plus 18% buyer’s premium).

The DNA of Summers Place Auctions remains firmly rooted in the bygone days of Sotheby’s regional empire. But, as the firm marks 10 years as a specialist auction house in Sussex, it is looking to new horizons...

The year 1884 was very significant for the Valencian artist Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1863-1923). Aged only 21, he travelled to Madrid for the third time, where he was awarded a second-class medal at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts for El Dos de Mayo 1808, and he received a grant to study in Rome for four years.

“The good thing for Welsh art is the maturity of the tourist industry. It’s no longer, ‘if you want to go to Wales, you go to Butlin’s in Pwllheli’.” Ben Rogers Jones of Rogers Jones (20% buyer’s premium) puts much of the increased demand for Welsh art over the last 20 years down to that tourism trend.

Bloodthirsty, ruthless and mad – Roman emperors have often been perceived as highly unsavoury individuals.