Editor’s picks | | | Mehdi Ghadyanloo rose to fame as a painter of trompe-l’oeil murals, initially in his native Iran and later in Europe and America. Many of his large-scale canvases, such as the 2021 work In the Empire of Sun, also fool the eye, with images of playground slides and ladders in box-like rooms that look as if the viewer could step inside Estimate: CNY 500,000-800,000 7 November, Shanghai | | | | | | This Flemish silver-gilt owl-shaped cup was made in Mechelen, in modern-day Belgium, around 1560. The head comes off to allow the vessel to be filled, and the ‘branch’ on which the bird perches can also be used as a whistle. Such objects were often given to guests as ‘welcome cups’ or awarded as trophies in archery competitions Estimate: €100,000-120,000 20 November, Paris | | | | | | The Belgian cartoonist Morris (pen name of Maurice De Bevere) introduced his comic-book cowboy Lucky Luke in 1946. Les Cousins Dalton, an original strip in which our hero defeats four gunslingers at a single stroke after slurping a Coca-Cola, dates from 1958, when Morris was working with René Goscinny, co-creator of Asterix Estimate: €50,000-70,000 15 November, Paris | | | | | | Architectural space is the chief subject matter of the Chinese artist Yuan Yuan, with a lack of human figures serving to accentuate the cultural traces they have left behind. Untitled, from 2011, presents a grand classical portal in which the central arched recess — where one might expect to find a monument, doorway or window — has been filled with books Estimate: HK$180,000-280,000 9 November, Hong Kong | | | | | | |
