Latest News Articles by Roland Arkell
‘When dealers co-operate, great things can happen’
30 June 2025Paxton House in Berwick-upon-Tweed has been reunited with an important Regency sofa it had lost for a century.
Cape silver collection on sale in South Africa
30 June 2025A substantial collection of 18th and 19th century Cape silver, made by European silversmiths practising in South Africa, is coming for sale at Strauss & Co in Johannesberg.
Pamphlets reveal longitude dispute
30 June 2025Courtesy of Dava Sobel’s 1995 best-seller, the compelling story of a Yorkshire horologist’s struggle to receive a prize for creating a reliable and accurate method for determining longitude at sea is well known.
Norfolk auction includes big hitters offered with hugely different estimates
30 June 2025Two separate lots at the recent books and manuscripts sale held by TW Gaze (26.4% inc VAT) in Diss, Norfolk sold at £20,000.
Incredibly rare Hellenistic coin dies in sheikh's collection survived the centuries
30 June 2025Only a very few coin dies have survived from antiquity so there was great interest in the Hellenistic examples offered by Apollo Art Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) on June 8.
Silver that tells many stories: the Peter Cameron collection comes to the saleroom
30 June 2025Stock of retiring dealer offered at auction includes items with fascinating backgrounds
Early Japanese sketches and photos reveal ‘the dress, manners, customs and country of the people’
30 June 2025Sketches at the Time of the Commencement of British Intercourse with Japan, an album containing 76 watercolours and drawings and 126 wood engravings from the last days of the Edo period, sold for £16,000 at Dominic Winter (22% buyer’s premium).
Aumbry cupboard for leftovers becomes first choice for bidders
30 June 2025A recent sale at Canterbury Auction Galleries (20% buyer’s premium) was led by this example of early English furniture: an oak aumbry or dole cupboard.
‘Rescue’ button from search for lost Franklin expedition bid to eight times estimate in Exeter
27 June 2025A copper button, made in 1852 as part of the effort to find survivors of the doomed Franklin expedition to the Arctic, has sold at auction for £6000.
Moorcroft carp vase nets auction record
23 June 2025A new auction high for a Moorcroft vase was set last week as the previous record holder returned to the rostrum.
Candlesticks with Austen link light up auction
23 June 2025A handsome pair of Regency period Egyptian Revival silver candlesticks with a Jane Austen connection sold well above hopes at Lacy Scott & Knight in Bury St Edmunds.
Ten works to see at Classic Art London
23 June 2025It may be a new name in the summer calendar, but this inaugural initiative is building on a firm foundation of previous ‘collegial’ events encompassing an array of selling exhibitions
How a Georgian house hid a tea caddy
23 June 2025The fashion for tea caddies and other boxes in the form of houses or other decorative buildings emerged in the last quarter of the 18th century and continued into the 19th century.
Sneak peek of summer auction highlights
23 June 2025This summer, a diverse range of noteworthy lots will go under the hammer at auction houses across the UK. Her we spotlight some of these – from a flag flown at the Battle of Trafalgar and a recently attributed painting by Artemisia Gentileschi to a medieval encyclopaedia and a collection of mustard pots assembled by a former Eton housemaster
Moorcroft vase breaks its own auction record
19 June 2025A new auction high for a Moorcroft vase was set as the previous record holder returned to the rostrum.
Record-setting Moorcroft vase heads back to the auction block
17 June 2025A piece that holds the record for a Moorcroft vase at auction returns to the rostrum this week.
Two Bullock desks sell at auction on same day
16 June 2025Serendipity had it that two Regency pollard oak and ebony inlaid desks attributed to George Bullock (c.1762-1818) came for sale within a matter of hours on June 12.
Persian version of Voltaire’s Peter the Great sells at £14,000
16 June 2025This extraordinary Persian manuscript sold by Roseberys (26% buyer’s premium) is a translation of 'Voltaire’s Histoire de l’empire de Russie sous Pierre-le-Grand' and his 'Histoire de Charles XII, Roi du Suede'.