New discoveries in Madrid

Encouraged by the recent strong growth of international interest in Spanish art and a number of important private sales, Christie's is reviving its Madrid auctions, last held in the early 1970s. Once again they are to be staged at the Palace Hotel (6 October). The 3 million [euro] sale combines Old Masters and nineteenth-century painting with modern and contemporary art, aimed to appeal to both the local and the international markets. Star of the Old Masters is a pair of previously unknown still lifes by the court painter Juan van der Hamer y Leon (1596-1631), arguably the most influential painter of still-lifes in seventeenth-century Spain, who helped establish this new genre in Madrid from the 1620s onwards. Both canvases are baskets of fruit grapes, pears and plums, and lemons and cherries--painted with various vessels and vegetables on a stone ledge. Given their importance, the pictures, which have been in the same collection since the nineteenth century, cannot be exported, so come with expectations of a relatively modest 800,000 [euro]-1.2m [euro] apiece. What can leave the country is a still life by Luis Melendez, featuring grapes, apples, pears and a cream jug. That has also been in a private collection since the nineteenth century (estimate 200,000-300,000 [euro]). On offer, too, is a Zurbaran Annunciation (400,000 [euro]-600,000 [euro]).

Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida has come to be recognised as one of the great artists of the nineteenth century, his work until fairly recently hugely undervalued in relation to French Impressionist painting. Here, his La lechera is the highlight of this group (estimate 300,000 [euro]-500,000 [euro]). This same estimate is also given Jose Gutierrez Solana's The Chinese table, and a rare nude by the contemporary realist Antonio Lopez Garcia.

Back in London on 27 October, Christie's offer the Leo Mildenberg collection of ancient animals--a veritable zoo comprising some 1,200 beasties in a variety of media and drawn from a range of civilisations. From his Swiss base, Mildenberg began to form his collection during the 1950s, and soon ark turned into menagerie and the pieces began a tour of public collections that took in fourteen cities across three continents, inspiring en route four publications and a children's story. Such was the late collector's passion for his creatures that he gave his most prized pieces their own names. So, during the days running up to the sale, more of us can have the opportunity of making the acquaintance of, say, Hubert, possibly the finest Middle Kingdom faience hippopotamus in private hands. In terms of both modelling and the decoration applied to his surface--a cross-eyed butterfly caught in the gaze of a greedy frog--he is a tour-de-force. (Estimate 150,000 [pounds sterling]-250,000 [pounds sterling]). His chums include Julius the Roman bronze duck lamp, Ferdinand the Apis bull and Omar the Sumerian leopard. Estimates begin at 500 [pounds sterling].