How inert material can be made to convey the mobility of Nature is demonstrated by Charles Lane in an advance viewing of three forthcoming London sales. Mastery includes awakening the senses of a viewer, especially the imagination, as the mind and the eye are led together to ponder the question, What happened next?

In Nature, where a camera generally lies, the hand and the eye of an artist record a deeper truth. The price may be high, as Rembrandt Buggatti, Scion of a famous family, came to know. Main picture: Bugatti's Two Walking Panthers, 1904. Left: Three Pelicans, also Bugatti, 1906 (from Sladmore Gallery, London). This page, above: Otter, by Martin Hayward-Harris, up at auction in Christie's Wildlife Art sale, South Kensington, on May 17, estimated at £3,000- 5,000.