LONDON.- Christie’s announce that they will offer an exceptionally rare and beautiful depiction of the ‘lost’ palace of Nonsuch at the auction of Old Masters and 19th Century Art on 7 December 2010. Commissioned by King Henry VIII in order to outshine the great palaces built by his rival King François I of France, the building of Nonsuch Palace began in 1538 and took 8 years to complete. It stood for less than 150 years having fallen into disrepair in the 1680s. The earliest and most important contemporary depiction of Britain’s most ambitious Renaissance commission, the present drawing is an extremely valuable record of the ‘lost’ palace and has been seen in public only twice before; at Sutton Place in 1983 and at The National Gallery, Washington, in 1986. Described by Martin Biddle as ‘the only surviving impression of what Nonsuch really looked like’, it is expected to realise £800,0