| This week’s stories Is this the finest Canaletto still in private hands? |  | | Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day was once in the collection of Britain’s first prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, and hung in 10 Downing Street. It has had just three other owners | | |  | ‘I would like to stay in a place of shadows’: the uncanny, metamorphic art of Victor Man | | |  | Collected across generations of one family: this Stubbs painting, Louis XV vases, and much more | | | |  | As Refik Anadol teams up with soccer star Lionel Messi, we revisit our profile of the artist | | |  | ‘The essence of figuration in African sculpture’: sub-Saharan art that elevates the human form | | | |  | Benjamin Steinitz, director of the Paris antiques business synonymous with le goût Steinitz, recalls the ‘fabulously elegant’ style of his mother — a legendary tastemaker with an unerring eye | | | | MORE STORIES |
Editor’s picks | | | Portrait of a Youth, from around 1839, is a daguerreotype by the pioneering photographer Robert Cornelius. Such images required the use of highly reflective silver plates, and the creation of these was a skill Cornelius had mastered in his work as a lamp-maker. Alongside a few other portraits of unnamed individuals, he is also credited with having taken one of the world’s first ‘selfies’ Estimate: $5,000-7,000 until 26 June, Online | | | | | | Dame Laura Knight’s View of a Cornfield: Corn Stooks is typical of the freely painted work she produced in the 1940s. Brilliantly evocative of its rural setting, it recalls the plein air studies of the Impressionists, with the artist intently observing the specifics of the scene, from the repeated patterns of the corn rows in the distance to the riot of colours among the nearby grasses Estimate: £5,000-8,000 2 July, London | | | | | | Made around 1785, this Louix XVI rotating-circle clock combines the very highest level of horological expertise with exquisite artistry. Conceived as a classical urn with a snake coiled around it — on a base adorned with ram’s heads, garlands and elegant paintings — the clock shows the hours and minutes on rotating discs, with the serpent’s pointed tongue indicating the time Estimate: €30,000-50,000 19 June, Paris | | | | | | The 17th-century Italian artist Michele Pace del Campidoglio painted A hound in a landscape for Cardinal Flavio Chigi, whose coat of arms appears on the dog’s collar. Chigi, who had been appointed by his uncle, Pope Alexander VII, was an avid dog lover: his apartments at the family’s country seat were home to four further pictures of greyhounds by the same artist Estimate: £250,000-350,000 1 July, London | | | | | | |
Spotlight on |  | | • | Jewels by JAR — exceptional earrings and a sapphire, emerald and diamond necklace offered in Magnificent Jewels, New York, on 17 June | | • | Who were the Brueghels? How Pieter Bruegel I — the first painter known to have captured snowfall in oils — founded one of art history’s great dynasties | | • | Hermès bags: all you need to know about the ‘holy trinity’ — the Kelly, the Constance and the Birkin — showcasing lots offered online until 17 June | |  | | Anytime, Anywhere DISCOVER PRIVATE SALES ON YOUR SCHEDULE |  | | auctions, exhibitions and activities June to August 2025 | | |
