Latest News Articles by Roland Arkell
What lots caught bidders’ eyes in the last week? Six auction highlights including a Suffragette archive sold at Catherine Southon’s latest sale
01 March 2019ATG’s selection of hammer highlights over the past week includes a large scrapbook of ephemera relating to Isabel Seymour, secretary for the Women’s Social Political Union (WSPU), that sold at Catherine Southon’s latest auction.
Major selection of German Expressionist works come to auction in New York
28 February 2019Swann Auction Galleries is to sell a major selection of German Expressionist works from one of the movement’s most important collections next week.
Pick of the week: 18th century pocket watch by Henry Cowper bought for £1 proves a profitable investment
25 February 2019An 18th century pocket watch by Gibraltarian goldsmith Henry Cowper emerged for sale at Rowley’s auction house in Ely. It belonged to a Lincolnshire private collector who bought it over 50 years ago for £1 from a former resident of the Rock.
Huge ‘lost’ Meiji vase goes from seafood restaurant to saleroom
25 February 2019A monumental cloisonné vase – the previously missing element to a triptych made for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago – sold for $110,000 (£85,000) in California.
VOGEL AND OLIVE COLLECTIONS: Two auctions showing the highs and the lows of traditional markets
25 February 2019The sale of two great collections at auction – one in London, the other in New York – has highlighted the ebbs and flows of the market for early British pottery and furniture.
Egyptian figures and Sèvres saucers among the five auction highlights that caught bidders’ eyes in the last week
22 February 2019ATG’s selection of hammer highlights over the past week includes a pair of Sèvres cups and saucers and Egyptian faience shabti figures.
Unopened Super Mario Bros video game sets auction record in the US
19 February 2019An unopened copy of the classic video game Super Mario Bros set a new auction record when it recently sold in Dallas, Texas for $80,000 (£62,000). The game is the only known sealed example from a test market release in 1985.
Two Meiji cloisonné masters emerge in the regions
18 February 2019Two fine examples of Meiji period cloisonné brought similar multi-estimate sums at regional auctions earlier this month.
At face value: coins and medals sales recover after 2017 dip
18 February 2019It is a quarter of a century since ATG’s first overview of London’s numismatic auction market. Here we review the heads and the tails of 2018.
Hammer highlights: 11 coins and medals that struck gold in 2018
18 February 2019ATG’s selection of 11 coins and medals lots that were among the highlights sold at UK auctions in 2018.
George II chandelier among the five auction highlights that caught bidders’ eyes in the last week
15 February 2019ATG’s selection of hammer highlights over the past week includes a George II chandelier and an architecture model of the Piazza del Duomo in Pisa.
One of the oldest Valentine cards sells at auction… on St Valentine’s Day
14 February 2019One of the world’s oldest surviving Valentine cards has sold today for £5800.
Pick of the week: Sledge from Shackleton's Antarctic expedition takes £115,000 at Bonhams
11 February 2019A sledge from the first expedition to the Antarctic led by Ernest Shackleton sold for £115,000 in Bonhams’ Travel and Exploration sale on February 6.
Mysterious master of foliage covered in New York
11 February 2019A New York institution has consigned an intriguing Netherlandish devotional painting to Freeman’s sale in Philadelphia on February 27. The small oil on cradled oak panel is one of only a dozen pictures by a workshop known only by the moniker Master of the Embroidered Foliage.
10 jewellery highlights at auction for winter 2019
11 February 2019A selection of 10 stand-out jewellery lots offered at auction in February-April 2019.
Rare timepieces from wartime in Penzance and West Sussex
11 February 2019A rare Longines centre seconds military wristwatch – a type developed in 1944 for the rigours of airborne work by the Research & Development team of the War Department – sold for a multi-estimate £11,200 at Barbara Kirk (15% buyer’s premium) in Penzance on November 27 last year.
Memento ring of the last Jacobite to be executed for treason sells in Chichester
11 February 2019A local family that could trace a clear line back to the 1750 was the consignor of this gold, white enamel and citrine mourning ring to Henry Adams in Chichester.
The ‘new’ market appeal of the tiara
11 February 2019Deemed a little ostentatious in some circles, tiaras have enjoyed a surge in popularity in recent years, particularly in Russia and the Baltic states where jeans and a diamond fascinator are de rigueur at informal high-society events.
The rivière’s endless flow at auction
11 February 2019The rivière – one of the most popular and enduring styles of necklace to come out of the Georgian period – features an endless line of matched or subtly graduated gems set within inconspicuous collets.
The many ‘fearless’ faces of Edith Weber: highlights from the jewellery sale at Skinner in Boston
11 February 2019The opening 96 lots of the sale at Skinner (23% buyer’s premium) in Boston on December 4 were from the stock of the former New York dealership Edith Weber Antique Jewelry.