Two landscape oil paintings by European artists grabbed the headlines as they sold for £7,000 apiece at Shropshire’s leading fine art auction house this week (Wednesday).
21/11/2025
The paintings by 20th century Italian Master Paolo Salvati (1939-2014) and Franco-Russian artist Ivan Fedorovitch Choultsé (1874-1939) starred at Halls Fine Art’s successful Modern and Contemporary Art and Design auction in Shrewsbury.
Titled ‘English Landscape’, the work by Salvati, a leading figurative painter of poetic and expressive art, was purchased by an Italian bidder. It was painted in 2000 and purchased the same year by English artist and set designer Gerald Anthony Binns (1942-2019) as a gift for his daughter, Anita.
Binns is said to have purchased the visionary and dreamlike landscape because it evoked memories of England. He and Salvati were friends who first met at exhibitions in Italy.
Choultsé’s painting was of Russian countryside, which was apt as he is known for his landscapes and genre scenes, capturing life and nature in his birth country. He emigrated to France in 1921, obtained French citizenship in 1927 and exhibited in Paris, London and New York.
Works by other European works also performed well, including £2,000 for a Venetian scene in pencil and crayon by Slovenian artist Zoran Antonio Mušič (1909-2005), £1,000 for a surreal landscape by Polish artist Borys Michalik (1969-2018) and £900 for a portrait of a child by Austrian artist Walter Langhammer (1905-1977), which went to a bidder in India.
British painters were not to be outdone, however, as an oil painting by Welsh artist Aneurin M. Jones (British, 1930-2017) of a sheepdog and sheep sold for £1,750 to a Welsh bidder, a dock scene by Anthony Amos (1950-2010) made £1,650 and ‘Evening fishermen off coast near Cassis, South of France’ by Cecil Rochford Doyly-John (1906-1993) sold for £1,350.
Four prints by legendary American musician and artist Bob Dylan, from a private collector in Telford, sold for £2,600. All from The Drawn Blank Series, ‘Cityscape, 2014’ sold for £800 and ‘Motel Pool, 2011’, ‘Ranchers, 2015’ and ‘Iron Railing, 2013’ sold for £600 apiece.
In the modern and contemporary design section, a mid-20th-century Staples ‘Ladderax’ modular lounge unit realised £750, a beautiful, small Art Nouveau-style painted hanging cupboard sold for £700 and a Macintosh teak sideboard is heading for a new home for £410.
Chloe Delpy-Harding, from Halls Fine Art’s modern and contemporary art and design team, said: “It was quite a varied sale which attracted interest from bidders throughout and we are delighted with the prices achieved, particularly for the landscape paintings by Salvati and Choultsé.
“In the modern and contemporary design section, everyone who saw the beautiful Art Nouveau hanging cupboard fell in love with it and the ‘Ladderax’ modular unit appealed to bidders because it’s so adaptable for different spaces in homes.
“We are looking forward to more consignments for our next modern and contemporary art and design auction in March.”
Chloe may be reached at Halls Fine Art on Tel: 01743 450700 (option 4) or via email at fineart@hallsgb.com.
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