Granddaughter of freed slaves, Elizabeth Catlett early develops a social sensitivity that she wishes to express through art. At the time of segregation and long before the acceptance of feminism, it is illusory for a black woman to foresee a career as an artist. She will be a teacher. Her original and genuine art will serve to awaken younger African-American women.

She graduated from the University of Iowa in 1940 with a Master of Fine Arts degree for which she had made a limestone sculpture on the theme of Mother and Child.

Catlett uses all the artistic techniques : engraving, painting, wood carving, terra-cotta, plaster and bronze, but in an early phase she practices very scarcely the direct cut. Stone carving requires a discipline and a thoroughness which are hardly in line with her priority to define and divulge a modern African-American art.

Her style inspired by Zadkine is cubist with strong remains from realism, showing in an expressive simplification the characteristic lines of people from her community.

Probably also under the influence of Zadkine, she carved another stone work circa 1943. This young man's head 33 cm high is estimated $ 200K for sale by Swann Galleries in New York on October 4, lot 20.

Throughout her career spanning seven decades, Elizabeth Catlett remained within her activist commitment, not without difficulties at her time when minorities were not welcomed. Best received in Mexico in the left wing following of Rivera and Kahlo, she lost the US citizenship from 1962 to 2002.

​During the Kangxi period, new relations with foreigners generate an interest for clocks. Qianlong integrates clockmaking into his direct supervision perimeter. The mechanical workshops of the Imperial Palace are considerably developed during his reign, employing at their apogee about a hundred people.

With the help of the Jesuits, these workshops imitate European models in forms, technique and workflow. A true quality system is applied, including rewards and punishments after appreciation of the work.

On October 3 in Hong Kong, Sotheby's sells a sumptuous pendulum clock 47 cm high bearing the imperial mark of Qianlong, lot 3421 estimated HK $ 15M.

It has the shape of a square based tower surmounted by a double openwork dome and by a gallery with baluster pillars. The dial marked in Roman numerals for hours and in Arabic numerals for minutes is Western inspired. The luxury brought to this object is typically Chinese with a rich carving of leaves and flowers. All the external bronze walls are entirely gilded.

Imperial Chinese clockmakers matched under Qianlong the know-how of their English colleagues. This clock is clearly not a Chinese case housing an English mechanism but a piece entirely made in China : its horizontal escapements are a local innovation.

It is very difficult to date this clock with precision inside the six decades of the Qianlong period. It should however be noted that it has no complication except for a rudimentary quarter-hour sound strike by a shock on a bronze bowl.

It probably predates the emperor's passionate interest in musical automatons developed in Europe during the second half of his reign. The need to maintain the commercial contact with Switzerland and England will ensure for a century the success of the Guangzhou workshops, constituting a further phase of Chinese luxury clockmaking.

The Macallan brand was once appreciated for its blends while some of their competitors led by Glenfiddish promoted the pure malt. In the early 1980s Macallan change their strategy for the high end. Pure malt preparations that have been distilling for several decades in their reserves then generated very small editions that are among the best whiskies in the world.

An operational from the brand observes that the 1926 Macallan bottled after 60 years in 1986 is one of the most powerful he has tested in his career. It is also the oldest in its category. 40 bottles of 75 cl grading 42.8% were prepared, including two series of prestige each numbered from one to twelve. The label of one of the series is an impression of a drawing by Valerio Adami, the other by Peter Blake.

These bottles are the most expensive in the world, on retail and at auction. On April 25, 2018 it was reported that an Adami and a Blake had just been sold at Dubai Airport for US $ 600K each. Bonhams was then preparing an auction of two similar bottles, estimated HK $ 3.6M each. On May 18 the Adami 2/12 was sold for HK $ 8.6M including premium and the Blake 8/12 for HK $ 8M including premium. Bonhams Magazine calculated that the price per glass exceeds US $ 40,000.

Other bottles are now surfacing with increased estimates taking into account the May 18 results. The Adami 5/12 is estimated over £ 700K for sale by Bonhams in Edinburgh on October 3, lot 86. The Blake 9/12 is estimated over $ 700K for sale by Sotheby's in New York on October 12, lot 1559. The high estimates are consistent with each other, respectively at £ 900K and $ 1.2M.

The two bottles that are coming for sale, like those of May 18, are integrated in their 'tantalus' safety cabinet. The Adami 5/12 is sold by its original owner. A very slight corrosion of the capsule is observed by Sotheby's for the Blake.

Chinese writing is standardized to 3,000 characters by the Qin around 220 BCE. Calligraphy is developed by two outstanding masters  contemporary one another under the Han in the late second century CE : Zhong reaches perfection for standard script and Zhang develops the cursive calligraphy.

Under the Jin dynasty in the fourth century CE, Wang Xizhi equals Zhong and tries to match Zhang. His son Wang Xianzhi brings the cursive script to the rank of a major art. The gesture of the artist becomes much more important than the text. By attempting to make the most exact copy, scholars retrieve not only the gesture but also the emotion of the former artist.

No original by Wang Xizhi survives. An ancient but undated copy 24.7 x 13.9 cm of one of his calligraphies was sold for RMB 308M including premium by China Guardian in November 2010.

The Qianlong emperor brings together the whole cultural heritage of his predecessors. A special hall in the palace is dedicated to the preservation of three treasures of ancient calligraphy. Copies are made for dissemination and also for exercise, including by the emperor himself who records his appreciation on colophons and affixes his seal.

Qianlong knows that paper is incompatible with an eternal preservation. The albums are thus not enough. He has the most prestigious calligraphies incised in jade screens. Unlike other craftsmen in jade or porcelain, jade engravers sometimes sign their art, which shows how important their work was to the emperor.

The calligraphy on jade respects the accuracy of the line of the original document and also the hollows and bumps from overlapping characters and seals, which is a technical feat when considering that jade can only get a subtractive carving. The incisions are filled with a compressed gold powder.

On October 3 in Hong Kong, Sotheby's sells a screen 31 x 30 cm and 1.7 cm thick, lot 3203 estimated HK $ 40M. The celadon jade is deliberately sprinkled with white spots imitating the snow.

It is engraved and gilded on both sides. The front side reproduces one of the three treasures, which is also the only authenticated autograph by Wang Xianzhi, 22 characters in cursive script. The imperial colophon and the seals are also reproduced, including a date matching 1746 CE.

The other side is devoted to 250 characters in thirteen lines which are the only remains of a poem from the early third century CE. It is a copy of a non datable jade-like plaque engraved after a calligraphy by the same artist Wang Xianzhi. The lost original had been copied under the Song.

Inspired by Picasso's art, Mark Grotjahn begins with abstract paintings designed around two vanishing points spread over a central vertical. The radiating lines define triangles that are filled in several monochrome shades of a basic color. This is his series of Butterflies, offering the illusion of these insects with open wings.

He changes his theme in 2007. Vanishing points are now multiple, spread on the canvas to simulate a mouth, a nose and several eyes in a changing quantity. The radiant graphics are now flexible lines that get entangled in a thick impasto of many colors. The figurative elements disappear, as Pollock's preliminary drawings were doing under his dripping.

The colors are carefully chosen so that none of them is dominant. As for Rothko or Gaitonde, the artworks are glossy and their photographic reproductions are dull. Through the folds of the impasto, the viewer looks for the face as he searches for the hidden message with Mark Bradford or the truculent detail with Cecily Brown.

Painted in 2011, Untitled (S III Release to France Face 43.14), oil on cardboard mounted on canvas 257 x 187 cm, was sold for $ 16.8M including premium by Christie's on May 17, 2017.

On October 4 in London, Christie's sells Untitled (Yellow and Green Low Fall Face 41.80), 224 x 124 cm painted in the same year with the same technique. It is estimated £ 6M, lot 21.

Under the Song dynasties, porcelain replaces jade for the dishes of the imperial palace, provided that its refinement is extreme. The greatest geometric simplicity is highly appreciated. The softness of the glazes is so great to the touch that up to present day it remains the unequaled summit of this art. Incised decorations are often exquisite but are not essential.

From the beginning of the dynasty with the white Ding type porcelain, some cups are multi-lobed, taking the shape of a blooming flower. This form has indeed a practical purpose because it helps to hold the brushes during washing.

900 years ago the "Northern" Song are overthrown by the Jin. The Song dynasty persists in the South with a new capital in Hangzhou. After a long reluctance to settle as far from their home base, the Southern Song recreate therein the best porcelain.

The main porcelain of the Southern Song is named guan. Mimicking the texture of the previous Northern pieces including the phenomenal Ru glaze, the guan porcelain offers new designs in a fertile rivalry between the traditionalists and the minimalist reformists. To please the formers, a great variety of new shapes imitates ancient bronzes and jades. The moderns are managing not without success to approach the quality of the Ru ware.

A Ru brush washer from the Northern Song 13.5 cm in diameter was sold for HK $ 208M including premium by Sotheby's on April 4, 2012.

In an extremely similar style, Sotheby's sells on October 3 in Hong Kong as lot 3105 a guan brush washer of the Southern Song 14 cm in diameter. The thick bluish green glaze with a classic crackle texture is glossy, without decoration. The color changes on the rim, voluntarily imitating not without humor the traces of the position in the kiln that had so much displeased the Song emperors in the early days of the Ding.

A guan dish of comparable design and shape 18 cm in diameter with a celadon glaze was sold for HK $ 26M including premium by Christie's on May 28, 2014.

Philip Vincent believes that speed records will boost business for his Vincent HRD motorcycle brand. In 1947 he had modified for that purpose a commercial Vincent HRD Series B Rapide. This bike is nicknamed Gunga Din by reference to Kipling's poem which ends with the famous line : "You're better than I am, Gunga Din".

Gunga Din will serve as a development model for several years. The first commercial derivative is the Black Shadow whose prototype is completed in February 1948.

In its original version, Gunga Din reaches 130 mph (210 km/h). That is not enough : this speed has been reached by BMW since 1929 and the German brand held since 1937 the land speed record at 173 mph, followed closely by Gilera and Brough.

In 1948 Vincent prepares a racing version of the Black Shadow for which superfluous equipment is removed at the expense of the road homologation. On September 13 in Bonneville, a modified Black Shadow overcomes the American speed record at 148 mph.

The prototype of the new Vincent HRD Black Lightning model incorporating the Bonneville improvements is exhibited by Vincent at the British International Motor Show which opens at Earls Court on October 27, 1948. The Black Lightning is very expensive and can only interest confirmed champions. Only 5 units are sold during the first half of 1949.

The second bike in this series had been sold to Swiss pilot Hans Stärkle, who had been before the war a works team rider for NSU. He used it in competition, sometimes with a sidecar. The next owners modified it to obtain the road homologation.

This Black Lightning has remained accident free despite a frequent use. It is estimated $ 400K for sale by Bonhams in Birmingham, Alabama on October 6, lot 144. Please watch and listen to the video prepared by the auction house.

George Dyer committed his irreparable act in October 1971. Although Francis Bacon's grief is deep and sincere, it is not devoid of selfishness. Francis is remorseful for his own behavioral mistakes towards the young man. Above all, this tragic event raises back to the surface with an unprecedented power his queries about the meaning of life.

The body and soul of the deceased are lost forever but the memory remains, threatened by oblivion. A triptych preserved at the Tate Gallery shows the man amputated of various organs before his collapse on the central panel.

On October 4 in London, Christie's sells Figure in Movement, oil on canvas 198 x 148 cm painted in 1972, lot 7 estimated £ 15M.

George is seen from behind, nude, without amputation, standing contorted on the tip of a foot. The title is ambiguous : by nature a dead does not move. A cheek is pressed against a newspaper illustrated by Letraset that he does not look at, as if he was desperately trying to stay in a present that no longer concerns him.

The overall composition seems simple but it is actually populated with symbols, easier to describe than to interpret.

The empty room can be the studio of a photographer : the character is enclosed in a filiform cage, as for the staging of an ephemeral moment or for the preview of a framing. This idea had already been used by the artist, for example in the three images of the triptych portrait of Lucian Freud in 1969.

The present is actually impossible to capture. On the floor next to the cage, a page of the same newspaper is shredded.

The body is illuminated from above, casting a black shadow on the ground. In other artworks like the Study for Portrait painted in 1977, the shadow takes on the recognizable silhouette of Francis Bacon himself. The artist is thus associated in a dematerialized form with the deceased.

The painting is executed in a very thick impasto, almost a sculpture. By kneading his pigments, Bacon offers his only method to create something that is akin to life : his art.

In 1728 CE, Tang Ying is appointed by the Yongzheng emperor as the Superintendent of the Imperial porcelain produced at Jingdezhen. He spends several years observing the best practices of the potters. One of his first major successes is the development of the yangcai, offering a less expensive substitute to the Imperial City's falangcai that remains the high end.

These first years are experimental, with pieces of all shapes. Qianlong who succeeds Yongzheng in 1735 CE is just as demanding as his father. To please him, they must constantly bring novelties that match his ambitious role as Son of Heaven, accumulating the styles of all dynasties and integrating the new European trends.

In the early 1740s Tang Ying's expertise in Jingdezhen has no limits. The most complicated pieces are technological syntheses that require a long succession of firings at the risk of a low yield.

In a memorandum submitted to Qianlong in 1743 CE, Tang Ying apologizes for the small amount of units produced in the new style of double vase, only nine. The inner part is enclosed in the outer vase with a distance of about 3 to 4 cm between their walls. The outer vase is pierced by large holes of various elegant shapes that allow the peeping to the inner part. The exterior is decorated with the same profusion as more classical imperial pieces.

Qianlong does not request the impossible. He authorizes to complete in pairs those models that had been produced in single pieces before suspending this technique sine die.

A reticulated vase with pairs of fishes surfaced in Middlesex in 2010. 40 cm high, it mixes archaic, Song, Buddhist and rocaille inspirations, juxtaposing the classic celadon and the modern yangcai in a yellow ground with sgraffiato. The inner wall is a blue and white in Ming style. After 30 minutes of bidding, Bainbridges's hammer fell at £ 43M, £ 51.6M including the premium, but the payment failed and the sale was canceled.

In 2010 nobody had considered the catalog of the exhibition in New York in 1905 of a Japanese collection where its pairing piece had been photographed and described. This vase has just resurfaced and is estimated HK $ 50M for sale by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 3, lot 3001. It differs from the Middlesex specimen by a rarer variant of the reign mark and so may be the master item produced for that pair.