Latest News Articles by Roland Arkell
Kongo nail figure hammered down at four times estimate
14 April 2025A tribal art sale held by Lempertz (26/20% buyer’s premium) in Brussels earlier this year was led by an exceptional nkisi nkondi figure. Guided at €70,000-80,000, it hammered at €320,000 (£264,500).
An island trail in Archibald Knox’s footsteps
14 April 2025Local tourist bodies believe that Knox can do for the Isle of Man what Mackintosh has done for Glasgow.
Ottoman inkwell attracts 37 bids at online auction
14 April 2025A fine example of early 18th century Ottoman metalwork sold for many times its estimate at Stockholms Auktionsverk (20% buyer’s premium) on February 20.
Reformer and religious author later burnt at the stake
14 April 2025Book was published by champion of Swiss Calvinism four years before he became a Protestant martyr
Finding Knox ‘was like falling in love’
14 April 2025Dr Stephen Martin first encountered Archibald Knox in a New York bookstore in 1990.
Sèvres plate puts on a display of French chivalry
14 April 2025Created shortly after the 1830 Revolution, when Louis Philippe ruled as ‘king of the French’, the ‘Service de la Chevalerie’ was a great example of romantic historicism.
Print purchaser was active in ‘Golden Age’ of collecting
14 April 2025Swedish civil engineer and army officer with great understanding bought the best impressions available
Cotswolds School lessons in style
12 April 2025The Art Deco design movement found a unique expression in Cotswolds School furniture - one that sought to blend clean lines with traditional English materials and craftsmanship.
Sienese gold ground paintings spotlighted in Christie’s private sales exhibition
11 April 2025Christie’s private sales department is holding a selling exhibition titled Siena and the Renaissance.
Elizabeth I gold Sovereign strikes £75,000
07 April 2025Held by the same Dutch family for just over 300 years, a very high-grade Elizabeth I gold Sovereign sold for £75,000 at London coin specialist Sovereign Rarities’ auction on March 13.
Lost Raeburn portrait of Robert Burns emerges
07 April 2025A hitherto lost portrait of Robert Burns by Sir Henry Raeburn has sold for 136-times top estimate at auction in south London. Modestly guided at just £300-500, it hammered for £68,000 at Wimbledon Auctions on March 31. Raeburn (1756-1823) never painted Scotland’s national poet from life.
Murphy’s Falcon Studio produced fine silver
07 April 2025These two silver lots bear the mark of Henry George Murphy (1884-1939), whose Falcon Studio produced some of the finest English silver of the inter-war era.
Designer Elmer wheels into view with a Carlton Ware vase
07 April 2025Only a decade ago Carlton Ware designer Violet Elmer (1907-88) was a relative unknown compared with her contemporaries Clarice Cliff, Susie Cooper and Charlotte Rhead.
Rings gave miners a memento of the Australian gold rush
07 April 2025Among the earliest examples of Australian gold rush jewellery are the simple signet rings sold to miners in the settlement of Ballarat in the 1850s as a memento of the boomtown days.
Isokon and Summers paved the way for Modernism
07 April 2025The London-based design company Isokon, which produced furniture by Wells Coates and Marcel Breuer, and Gerald Summers’ firm Makers of Simple Furniture both explored the radical possibilities of lamination.
Listeners cried out for cheaper radios amid economic turmoil
07 April 2025As the Depression took hold, the clamour for luxury goods in tropical hardwoods, silver and shagreen was replaced by a demand for less expensive consumer goods that combined the modern aesthetic with new materials and industrial production.
Trump tariffs throw art trade into confusion
07 April 2025The ‘Liberation Day’ trade tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump have thrown the global art and antiques trade into disarray.
Slater Shelley creations gave cause to ‘stop and think’
07 April 2025Shelley produced the geometric Vogue and Mode shape tea and coffee wares between 1930-32 - both the designs of Eric Slater (1902-84) who had worked at the factory since the end of the First World War.