Drawings & Pastels

It took over 15 minutes to sell, but when the gavel finally came down at £26.5m the Raphael from Chatsworth had become the second most expensive Old Master ever sold at auction – and the priciest drawing of all time.

This pencil drawing by Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-73) is of his own dog Brutus and dates from the mid 19th century.

The most expensive artwork ever sold at auction is to go on display to the public for six months at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Later this year, Sotheby’s will be offering three valuable works of art from the Devonshire collection at Chatsworth House including one of the best Raphael drawings remaining in private hands.

A portrait of Princess Elizabeth by Dame Laura Knight (1877-1970) completed just a few years before she became Queen is to go under the hammer at Bloomsbury Auctions in London on September 12.

An illustration of the Polish composer Frederic Chopin by Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) was the star attraction at a recent auction in Wales.

Among the best Modern British pictures offered at Lawrences of Crewkerne on July 6 was Edward Burra’s (1905-76) ‘Funfair’, which was consigned from a good local collection barely 24 hours before the catalogue went to press.

Bloomsbury Auctions will offer 42 original pencil sketches by American novelist Norman Mailer at their July 19 sale in London.

Appearing in Carmarthen on July 24, this illustration of the Polish composer Frederic Chopin by author Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) was discovered during a routine house call by auctioneers Peter Francis.

Previously unknown to scholars, this exceptional pen and ink drawing by Canaletto (1697-1768) set an auction record for a work on paper by the artist at the latest series of Old Master sales in London.

Chorley’s of Prinknash Abbey Park in Gloucestershire are offering this sketch by Damien Hirst at their sale on May 24.

THE latest round of Impressionist and Modern art sales in New York will forever be remembered as ‘The Scream’ series.

Wind in the Willows characters Mole, Ratty and Toad are to go under the hammer at Michael Bowman of Newton Abbot in Devon on May 5.

IS this the longest queue ever to view a single lot coming up at auction?

IN February we revealed how Queen Victoria was an accomplished artist, but now her daughter’s skills have been highlighted by a Surrey auction.

David Hockney (b.1937) and the late Lucian Freud (1922-2011) have captured the public imagination at the moment.

THE term ‘masterpiece’ is all too commonplace in auctioneering hyperbole, but just occasionally it rings true.

A COLLECTION of Augustus John drawings, consigned by the family of Dame Elizabeth Taylor, will be sold by a West London auction house on September 28.

FOUR sketches by Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais, found tucked inside covers of Led Zeppelin LPs, have been withdrawn from sale at Chilcotts auctioneers in Tiverton, Devon, because of a “misunderstanding over ownership” according to the auctioneers.

IN the early hours of August 6, a Henry Moore sketch and two oil paintings were stolen from Trinity House on the High Street in Broadway, south Worcestershire.