Editor’s picks | | | Alexis Vollon’s 1896 portrait of his son Pierre, in pastel on paper, is dedicated to the artist’s wife Mathilde. The work brilliantly captures the different ways in which light falls on the boy’s face and hair, his striped shirt and the rich brocade hanging behind him. Such skilful rendering of form and texture was something he had learned from his own father, the realist painter Antoine Vollon Estimate: $5,000-7,000 4 February, New York | | | | | | The place of The Great Gatsby in the canon of world literature is taken for granted today. But, as this letter from F. Scott Fitzgerald shows, the author took an anxious interest in how it was received by the critics. Writing to his English publishers, Chatto and Windus, in early 1926, he draws their attention to a ‘very enthusiastic review’ in The Criterion, the London literary magazine edited by T.S. Eliot Estimate: £10,000-15,000 13 February, London | | | | | | Painted around 1570 by Simon de Myle, Samson destroying the Philistine temple is an original Flemish take on the Old Testament story. The temple is presented as an arcaded banqueting hall packed with revellers, in a scene so busy that you might almost miss the central figure of Samson, clutching two columns and on the point of pulling the whole structure down Estimate: $150,000-250,000 5 February, New York | | | | | | These German silver-gilt beakers, from around 1715, are decorated with enamel scenes representing times of the year. One, depicting January and February, shows an old man warming his hands on a brazier, with the symbols of Aquarius and Pisces above; the other, set in November and December, features a hunter with his dogs, beneath the signs of Sagittarius and Capricorn Estimate: $10,000-15,000 6 February, New York | | | | | | |
