Latest News Articles by Roland Arkell
Early Christmas cards deliver festive cheer for a surprised vendor
09 January 2026Prompted by the uniform penny post and the new printing process of chromolithography, the Victorian era was the heyday of the Christmas card.
Sale brimming full of character thanks to Doulton designs
09 January 2026Doulton figures and jugs depicting the famous and not-so-familiar include sought-after rarities
Kashmiri shawl was given by Victoria as a present
09 January 2026As ruler of an empire on which the sun never set, Queen Victoria adopted the Indian practice of giving Kashmiri shawls as gifts to visiting dignitaries and coming-of-age and wedding presents to her friends at court.
Dutch buyer secures another British microscope for his museum of science
05 January 2026A rare Georgian brass microscope by Edinburgh maker John Clark will join an important Dutch collection after its sale in the Cotswolds.
First edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland donated to Oxford University
05 January 2026The most important of only 23 known surviving copies of the first – and subsequently withdrawn – June 1865 edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has been given jointly to Christ Church Oxford and the Bodleian Libraries.
Do book collecting terms fox you? Pick up a Searle at auction
05 January 2026An original illustration for one of the most entertaining works on rare book collecting hammered for £15,000 to lead Mallams’ latest Modern Art & Design auction.
Pick of the week: Mamluk manuscript gallops to £150,000
05 January 2026An ‘exceptional and newly discovered’ Mamluk manuscript copy of an Arabic text on hippiatry (equine medicine) was the highlight of Lyon & Turnbull’s latest Islamic and Indian art sale in London.
Trade alert after masked men steal Guild of Handicraft jewellery
19 December 2025Police are appealing for information after many identifiable pieces of antique jewellery were stolen during a robbery in the Cotswolds.
A £31,000 Fabergé farmyard star brings animal magic to Macclesfield
19 December 2025The first day of the December 10-12 sale at Adam Partridge in Macclesfield, Cheshire, included a 2in (5cm) high Fabergé jewelled agate model of a cockerel or rooster.
Costume drama in a small case
19 December 2025So-called ‘talc pictures’ or ‘metamorphoses’ were fashionable amusements in European courts in the second half of the 17th century.
Happy birthday to James Joyce from Nora Barnacle
19 December 2025A recent sale of Books, Documents & Ephemera at Stride & Son in Chichester included this 3½ x 2½in (9 x 6cm) brass and enamel cigarette case.
Snuff bottle buys outlined in detail
19 December 2025Extensive collection also came with impressive records of purchase such as original dealer invoices
Tall story adds to appeal of ‘Rose Tree’ tea caddy
19 December 2025This 18th century hardwood tea caddy, boldly carved in imitation of gnarled rootwood and mounted in white metal, is an Anglo-Chinese production, made for export in Canton (modern-day Guangzhou) c.1780.
Guanyin figure secures highest Chinese art sum in latest regional auction series
19 December 2025Dehua blanc de chine figures of Guanyin – the goddess of compassion, protector of mariners and bringer of sons – often carry the impressed double gourd seal of the great 16th or 17th century ceramicist He Chaozong.
Tiffany lamp record set as Magnolia pattern turns heads at Sotheby’s
16 December 2025A Magnolia pattern floor lamp has become the most expensive Tiffany Studios lamp to sell at auction.
Cloisonné imperial vases pair up at £145,000
15 December 2025The latest sale at Alastair Gibson Auctions in Kent was led by a stellar example of Meiji or Taisho era cloisonné: a pair of imperial presentation vases by Nagoya master Hattori Tadasaburo.
Plucked out: Banjo vase hits the right note in a yellow version at £10,000
15 December 2025While the market for post-war Whitefriars has waxed and waned in the past three decades, in 2025 several very active collectors have driven saleroom prices forward once again. It has been a strong year for the Geoffrey Baxter Textured range in particular.
Watches consulted by three heroes of Trafalgar during the battle sell as a wave of Nelson interest sweeps in
15 December 2025Pocket watches owned by Horatio Nelson, Thomas Hardy and Cuthbert Collingwood and consulted throughout the Battle of Trafalgar were sold together as a single lot in London on December 9.
