Print Edition

Our weekly selection from salerooms.

MADAM – Regarding the recent correspondence in ATG about green packaging, and the overall renewed spotlight on sustainable art market businesses, I am responding with some practical advice and thoughts on the ‘bigger picture’.

Online buying: realised prices at auctions on thesaleroom.com

Dealers, fair organisers and auction houses often hold events that coincide with important anniversaries.

Holding for 22 years the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing, the great Cunard liner RMS Mauretania is a magical name for collectors of maritime memorabilia.

Alongside two key early maps of colonial North America (see News, ATG No 2422) the sale at Ramsay Cornish (20% buyer’s premium) in Edinburgh on December 7 was distinguished by five-figure bids for two rare items.

Michael Faraday’s laboratory notebook from 1851 includes a series of diagrams illustrating what he called ‘magnetic lines of force’ – the magnetic field lines that are central to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry.

On Thursday, December 19, Michael Bloomstein of Brighton was paying the following for bulk scrap against a gold fix of:

For better or worse, Brexit is finally set to proceed and will be a major factor in the year ahead – as will timed auctions, anti-money laundering rules, the looming prospect of a near-total ivory trade ban, antiquities challenges and a new buying ethos based on cultural sensitivities, changes at major fairs and a growing ‘green’ movement.

“I will always be a painter of beaches,” declared Eugène Boudin (1824-98) in 1864.

Building your collection can involve a lot of thought along with the time and money involved, but it is also worth spending a while thinking about how to share it.

This Neoclassical drawing by the Swedish sculptor Johann Tobias Sergel (1740-1814) proved very popular in the opening Old Master works on paper section of the mixed-discipline traditional sale held by the Hôtel des Ventes de Monte-Carlo 25% buyer’s premium) on November 27 in Monaco.

Also at Shepton Mallet in January, IACF’s two-day Antiques, Vintage & Collectors Fair takes place on Friday and Saturday 17-18.

Egypt views stand out among a selection also involving many other worldwide works

Bid to £3000 at Chiswick Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) on November 20 was a rare and early game.

The first event of the year for Galloway Antiques Fairs is its local event in Harrogate.

HMRC is to update UK art market professionals with guidance and webinars in January ahead of the introduction of new anti-money laundering legislation.

Tucked inside an18th century treen model of a ship’s hull is a historic note reading This was taken out of a writing bureau belonging to Lord Collingwood. I saw the bureau and know its history.

Depiction of Emperor Shah Jahan is thought to have been prepared for his official chronicle.

Matthew Barton (25% buyer’s premium) attracted international interest in this early-19th century German gold snuff box at his November 20 London sale.