Oil, Acrylic paintings & Mixed Media

IT is not often that an antiques dealer ends up on the walls of the National Portrait Gallery, but until September 19 that is just what is happening.

DAVID Teniers the Younger’s whimsical 6 x 8 1/2in (16 x 22cm), oil on copper view of Monkeys Playing Cards, sold to a private buyer against the London trade for a double-estimate €220,000 (£146,665) at Tajan on June 24.

THE National Maritime Museum are asking for help in tracking down two missing paintings by William Hodges. The works The Effects of Peace and The Consequences of War were last seen at a European Museum sale at Christie’s in 1813.

THE Old Master trade loves a sleeper and at least two dealers were convinced they were on to a major discovery when a woefully under-catalogued “Painter standing beside a canvas depicting cupid, oil on canvas, 45 x 37.5in (1.14m x 95cm)” came under the hammer without any form of attribution or estimate at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire rooms of North East Auctions (15/10% buyer’s premium) on May 23.

PICTURES in a May 19 sale held by Doyles of New York included a very large (6ft 4 1/2in x 4ft 1in (1.93 x 125m) oil on panel after Andrea del Sarto's Porta Pinti Madonna.

THE received wisdom of the art market tells us that heavily restored paintings attract little demand from the trade at auction. But sometimes a subject is just too commercial for dealers to pass by, such as this Arthur Wardle (1864-1947) canvas, right, of four terrier puppies, Mischief in Quadruplet, which came up for sale at the Nottingham rooms of Mellors & Kirk (15% buyer’s premium) back on April 23.

WITH the bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar beckoning next year, and market-fresh, unrestored marine pictures in ever-dwindling supply, it was hardly surprising to see this exceptionally well-preserved Panorama of Portsmouth Harbour, right, by Thomas Elliott (fl. 1790-1800) inspire intense, multiple-estimate bidding at Christie’s South Kensington’s (19.5/12% buyer’s premium) May 26 Maritime Sale.

COLLECTORS who love the art of L.S. Lowry but can only afford Helen Bradley (1900-1979) were presented with the picture of their dreams when this 11 by 14in (27 x 36cm) oil, right, of the momentous and inspirational meeting between Lowry and Bradley outside the 1955 Saddleworth Art Group’s Exhibition came up for sale at the Chichester rooms of Henry Adams (15% buyer’s premium) on April 28.

AUCTION history was duly made at Sotheby’s New York on the evening of Wednesday, May 5 when Picasso’s iconic 1905 Rose Period canvas, Garçon à la Pipe, was knocked down for a hammer price of $93m (£54.7m), making it the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction.

ACQUIRED for £52,000 by the Australian businessman John Schaeffer at Christie’s, London in June 1996, this striking oil on canvas, right, A Dancing Athlete with an Olive Branch, by Frederic Leighton (1830-1896), comes under the hammer again on May 15.

THERE was no doubt about which were the two outstanding lots at Hamptons’ (15% buyer’s premium) March 24 picture sale in Godalming.

THE gulf in value between fully authenticated pictures and those with mere attributions was clearly in evidence on March 4 when this 18th century Irish School landscape, right, came up for sale at the Amersham Auction Rooms in Buckinghamshire.

EVERYONE is aware of how rich a thin stratum of Russians have become in the post-glasnost years. The buying power of Russia’s new rich was amply in evidence on March 23 at Bonhams (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) Bond Street when the spectacular 3ft 1in x 5ft 8 3/4in (94cm x 1.74m) canvas, Nero’s Torches, by Henryk Siemiradzki (1843-1902) sold at £260,000 at an otherwise fairly predictable 19th Century Paintings sale.

A POPULAR breed, a popular artist, plenty of puppies, totally fresh to the market, a come-hither estimate... When it came to dog paintings, this signed Arthur Wardle (1864-1949) canvas of a long-haired Jack Russell terrier with her pups had pretty well everything going for it when it came under the hammer at Wintertons (15% buyer’s premium) of Lichfield on March, estimated at just £2000.

ALTHOUGH Derwent Lees (1885-1931) is recorded in reference books, such as the Handbook of Modern British Painting and Print-making 1900-1990, published by Ashgate, he is not that well known outside specialist trade circles.

WITH thousands of middle-class homes being turned into white boxes every week, how on earth can English auctioneers sustain the market for middle-of-the-road Victorian pictures?

There was high excitement at the Cork rooms of Joseph Woodward & Sons (15% buyer’s premium) on February 11 when what was thought to be the earliest surviving painted view of Cork harbour fetched what is known to be the highest auction price ever paid for a painting in the city.

IF asked to nominate the subject of a commercial painting by Montague Dawson (1895-1973), most specialists and collectors would think of a clipper ship, preferably an American clipper in full sail on picturesquely choppy, but not too choppy, seas.

Dead animals are usually regarded as a major commercial no-no in a painting, as is excessive size. It was therefore hardly a surprise that a recently restored and relined 5ft 10in by 8ft (1.78 x 2.44m) Richard Ansdell (1815-1885) canvas featuring a dead wolf and a dying dog did not exactly inspire a blizzard of bids when it came under the hammer at Maxwells of Wilmslow on January 23.

Scottish, Greek and Australian subjects gave a welcome international feel to the main highlights among the pictures offered on the third day of Gorringes’ (15% buyer’s premium) January 27-29 sale in Lewes.