Art Market

Artist’s masterpiece sold earlier this year is followed up by plates, prints and paintings from same source

The artist was an intrepid – and rare female – visitor to Welsh deep coal mines to record the final days

Victorian and traditional landscapes may no longer command the prices they did two decades ago, but the right examples – especially when guided by cautious estimates – can still draw healthy competition.

A riverside view of Lindsey House in London’s Cheyne Walk drew decent interest at a recent Bonhams (28% buyer’s premium) sale but ended up selling for markedly less than its last auction appearance 10 years ago.

The only known portrait of the inventor Reverend Edward Barlow (1639-1719) was sold by Bath horology specialist Gardiner Houlgate (20% buyer’s premium) earlier this summer.

Werner watercolour underlines importance of quality local consignments to regional salerooms

A set of pictures thought to be the largest collection of portraits of British prime ministers in private hands emerged at Sloane Street Auctions (26.5% buyer’s premium) earlier this summer.

Among the Italian Old Masters bringing interest at auctions across the country over the summer was an intriguing painting of the Holy Family that emerged at Lyon & Turnbull (26% buyer’s premium) in Edinburgh.

When Clementine Ogilvy Spencer Churchill, the wife of Sir Winston, first saw a now-famous bronze sculpture by Oscar Nemon showing her late husband reclining in his seat, she remarked: “This is how I see him and that is how I love him.”

For a sector often tainted by an inadequate supply of fresh and top-draw material, the latest series of Old Master auctions in London certainly had moments where the core market woes seemed mysteriously absent.

Three portraits that came fresh to the market with an unbroken provenance drew strong interest at Bonhams’ latest Old Master auction in London.

When Daniel Lambert, the famously rotund prison warden from Leicester, died in June 1809 at the Waggon and Horses Inn at Stamford, Lincolnshire, the title of ‘England’s fattest man’ transferred to a new contender.