Latest News Articles by Roland Arkell
Tea and coffee service showing taverns and peasant life serves up £6800 result
23 July 2018Not every Victorian silver tea and coffee service was sold for scrap in the great meltdown of 2011– when at one point the price reached almost £30 per oz.
Murphy pendant sparkles in Salisbury
23 July 2018Chosen as the front-cover illustration to Paul Atterbury and John Benjamin’s 'The Jewellery and Silver of HG Murphy' (2005), this gemset pendant also provided Woolley & Wallis’ latest Jewellery and Watches sale with its showcase lot.
Top quality counts in Dorchester auction
23 July 2018While good-quality but familiar Georgian silver such as entrée dishes, tureens and sauceboats estimated in the £6000-12,000 range met stiff resistance at Dorchester auction house Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) on June 28, two top-quality pieces made their money.
Long tongs pick up impressive result in Irish auction
23 July 2018These outsize tongs, below, proved the major surprise at Adam’s (20% buyer’s premium) in Dublin on June 17.
Pounce pot is example of work by successful Georgian female silversmith
23 July 2018As collecting evolves, many pieces of decorative, and historically captivating, Georgian silver are priced very keenly at both auction and retail.
Detail in the Devlin
23 July 2018The recent death of designer Stuart Devlin and the book he published just a few months before could lead to a reappraisal of his work.
Feeling beastly in the Netherlands and Germany
23 July 2018The so-called auricular style – all organic fluid lines and asymmetrical shapes populated by marine invertebrates and reptiles – can first be found in the 1598 ornament book of Northern Mannerism, Architectura…, by Wendel Dietterlin of Stuttgart.
Candlesticks by Coker and Cafe light up sales in Cambridge and Lewes
23 July 2018Pairs of Georgian candlesticks by the best-known London specialist makers such as William Cafe and Ebenezer Coker continue to sell well enough, as long as condition is acceptable.
Buyers on the scent of Chiswick Auctions silver
23 July 2018This novelty silver scent bottle, below, appealing to two niche sections largely immune to the swings of the larger silver market, was a target for collectors when offered at Chiswick Auctions (25% buyer’s premium).
Spoon and snail on offer – but nothing sluggish about bidding at Somerset auction
23 July 2018Considering that Norwich was, after London, the largest and wealthiest city in England from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution, its assay office (1562-1705) was comparatively shortlived. As such, secular silver produced in the city rarely appears on the market.
Falcon Studio silver from HG Murphy family flies into Salisbury sale
23 July 2018Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) is currently selling across a number of auctions a cache of items from the family of HG Murphy (1884-1939), whose Falcon Studio produced some of the finest English silver of the inter-war era.
Judges in California shelve law for artist resale right
18 July 2018The 1977 California Resale Royalties Act has effectively been shelved after panel of judges struck down the law – the US’s only ‘droit de suite’ law for visual artists.
The £30 bottle once thought to be fake is now the real auction deal at £18,000
16 July 2018A Yorkshire collector who bought what he thought was a replica antique bottle at a fair for just £30 has sold it for a hammer price of £18,000 at auction after discovering it really was from the 17th century.
Pick of the week: Hours and centuries of famous owners
16 July 2018Estimated at £200,000-300,000, the 'Hours of Isabella d’Este' sold at £340,000 (plus buyer’s premium) at Bloomsbury Auctions’ sale of Western and Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures on July 10.
Guelph Treasure claim can go to court in US
16 July 2018A Washington DC appeals court has upheld a decision to allow a ‘Nazi forced sale’ claim against a collection of medieval devotional art to go to trial in the US.
Archaeological dig at the battlefield of Waterloo wins support from Bonhams
16 July 2018Auction house Bonhams is sponsoring Waterloo Uncovered, an archaeological dig at the battlefield of Waterloo.
Record set for Sir Quentin Blake illustration as 40-year collection sells at auction
13 July 2018Watercolours and drawings from the personal collection of artist Sir Quentin Blake (b. 1932) have been sold at Christie’s for over £750,000.
'Nazi-loot' claim over $250m Guelph Treasure can go to trial in US federal court
13 July 2018A Washington DC appeals court has upheld a decision to allow a ‘Nazi forced sale’ claim against a spectacular collection of medieval devotional art to go to trial in the US.
Hailwood makes quick return with Dreweatts
09 July 2018Wristwatch expert Adrian Hailwood has joined Dreweatts as a senior specialist.
Rarest of the ‘Dirty Dozen’ comes to auction
09 July 2018This unassuming Grana military issue c.1945 forms part of the so-called ‘Dirty Dozen’ wristwatches made by 12 Swiss manufacturers for the British army.