Auctions

The flagship auctions of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art in New York last week showed a recovery after a difficult 2016.

The Cubist-inspired oils of Manchester artist Geoffrey Key (b.1941) regularly feature at Peter Wilson (20% buyer’s premium) in nearby Nantwich.

A rather shabby portrait of an unknown woman sparked a bidding battle at W&H Peacock (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Bedford on May 5.

Three substantial sales from Edinburgh to Exeter via Doncaster last month confirmed the promise of early spring with the staple areas of furniture, silver and ceramics holding up and, for named or specialist-interest material, doing well. The figures underline the overall buoyancy.

Finely bound sets featured in the high spots ofa third Sotheby’s New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale of modern literature from the Maurice Neville library held on April 25.

Early Dutch discoveries in Australia and those made in Tasmania and New Zealand on Abel Tasman’s first voyage are outlined in a 1659 wall-map by the Amsterdam cartographer Joan Blaeu (1596-1673).

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period May 11-17, 2017. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

An unexpected highlight of an April 28-29 sale held by Brussels saleroom The Romantic Agony (24% buyer’s premium), was a leaf from an illuminated manuscript.

“I think the secret to our success is that we now hold an art sale every four weeks.” A 90% sell-through rate from 400 lots was the latest bullish stat to come out of John Nicholson’s (24% buyer’s premium) monthly picture auctions, started this year by specialist Buffy Parker.

Artwork produced for the much-loved ‘Ladybird’ books by the late John Berry (1920-2009) were offered by Tennants (18.5% buyer’s premium) on April 28.

Containing over 150pp of notes and fragmentary drafts for two of her novels and a play, an autograph notebook used by Agatha Christie while in Baghdad around 1948 – perhaps while travelling with her husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan – sold for $15,000 (£11,625) in a Swann Auction Galleries (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of May 4.

The late Hubert Dingwall began a lifetime of book collecting in 1935 with the purchase of a vellum bound copy of the second part only of a 1697 Antwerp edition of Don Quixote for one shilling and sixpence.

Summers Place Auctions in Billingshurst is well known for its Garden Statuary and Natural History sales. Now it is adding a new category to the portfolio.

It has been 50 years since the Beatles released their eighth studio album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to universal acclaim.

Duke’s of Dorchester posted the top regional Asian art price of the season on May 18 when Wu Guanzhong’s (1919-2010) scroll painting White Birches on Mount Chang Bai (Zhangbai) sold at £500,000 (plus buyer’s premium).

The big surprise at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood'’s April 11-12 sale at Exeter was this 17th-18th century Tyrolean wood and gilt crucifix.

Made by Paul Storr, highly decorative and from the family collection of the late Sir Nicholas Harington, this 1836 piece of silver had the name, the look and the provenance to overcome the somewhat unfashionable nature of inkstands.

Jenny Saville’s (b.1970) contorted and grotesquely fleshy female nudes are hot property on the contemporary art market.