E xplore the top works, collections and stories of the season as they are announced and join us for the Old Masters exhibition in our London galleries 27 June through 1 July.

This July’s Old Masters Week brings together five sales spanning antiquity to the late 19th century. Leading the Old Master & 19th Century Paintings and Sculpture Evening Auction on 1 July is a recently identified large-scale Rembrandt, Let the Little Children Come Unto Me, presented alongside Sir Edwin Landseer’s sweeping Highland canvas, Scene in Braemar – Highland Deer, and an intimately scaled, exceptionally well-preserved devotional panel by Hans Memling. Further highlights include a newly reconsidered and early Madonna and Child by Sandro Botticelli, a refined work by Bernard van Orley, a captivating pastoral scene by Paulus Potter, and Hendrick Goltzius’s allegorical Christ as the Living Tree by Ecclesia.

Just ahead of the Evening Sale, Sotheby’s will present one of the week’s showstoppers: the Hamilton Laocoön, an exceptional life-size Neoclassical bronze cast by Auguste-Jean Marie Carbonneaux after the celebrated antique original, distinguished by the storied provenance of its ducal namesake. On the morning of July 1 is Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries, an auction led by Sir Peter Lely’s rare Self-Portrait and Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s vibrant pastel Self-Portrait in a Turban, alongside sheets by Rubens and Guercino, a dynamic study of lions by Delacroix, and watercolours by Turner and Sarah Biffin. Following this sale is Master Sculpture from Four Millennia, encompassing ancient bronzes, Roman marbles, Grand Tour masterpieces and further works spanning four thousand years.

On 2 July, the Old Master Paintings & Works on Paper Day Auction sustains the week’s momentum with a charming panel from the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, two atmospheric Venetian views by Francesco Guardi, a characterful head study by Van Dyck, and Meindert Hobbema’s wooded river landscape. The week concludes with the 19th & 20th Century European and British Art Auction, led by Frederic, Lord Leighton’s Sisters; Joaquín Sorolla’s Children on the Seashore, Valencia; William Degouve de Nuncques’s nocturnal La nuit à Bruges; and Aivazovsky’s luminous view of Venice at sunset.