Latest News Articles by Roland Arkell

Sotheby’s offers Schaeffer collection in Sydney auction
13 April 2018Sotheby’s Australia will auction what it calls “the most significant collection of historical international art” offered in the country later this month.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh-designed Glasgow School of Art key to stay in Scotland after it is sold at Edinburgh auction
13 April 2018In the year of the 150th anniversary of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s birth, Lyon & Turnbull has sold the very key used to open the artist’s masterpiece The Glasgow School of Art in 1899.

Summer Palace bronze sells for £410,000 at Canterbury Auctions
11 April 2018An exceptionally rare Western Zhou bronze, taken when the Summer Palace was sacked by British troops in 1860, has sold for £410,000, four times its lower estimate.

Sotheby's spring Hong Kong auctions feature top-selling trio of Chinese imperial objects
09 April 2018Sotheby’s spring Hong Kong series included a trio of eight-figure Chinese imperial works of art.

Dutch auction house plans regular London sales
09 April 2018A Dutch auction house is planning to launch regular sales in London as, it says, the art and antiques market in Holland has contracted.

The ivory ban: the antique objects that could not be traded under the new law
09 April 2018ATG selects objects with ivory – from teasets to Art Deco figures – recently sold at auction that may become illegal to sell under the law

Pick of the Week: Iron Duke’s soft spot for a young lady
09 April 2018When Frances Noble, head of Dix Noonan Webb’s jewellery department, was shown this coronet with a family tradition connecting it to the Duke of Wellington, it was caked with dirt.

The ivory ban: ATG answers reader questions about the new law's implications for antique ivory
09 April 2018Roland Arkell and Noelle McElhatton on what the new ivory law could mean for art and antiques.

Eagle tables soar to £65,000 result
09 April 2018Despite visible condition issues, a pair of carved giltwood console tables, catalogued as c.1740 and later, sailed past modest expectations to bring £65,000 (plus 24% premium) at Dreweatts 1759 of Donnington Priory.

Gandolfi rediscovery sets house record in Leominster
02 April 2018An oil on copper painting depicting Saint Joseph by the Bolognese artist Gaetano Gandolfi (1734-1802) was the highlight of Brightwells’ spring fine art sale in Leominster on March 21-22.

Pick of the Week: Here comes the sundial at Summers Place
02 April 2018Henry Wynne (fl.1654-1709), master of the Clockmaker’s Company, produced the finest and largest double-horizontal sundials of the Restoration period.

Feel the force of Darth Vader demand
02 April 2018When the first wave of Kenner Star Wars action figures began arriving on the market in 1978, the Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker figures came with ‘double telescoping’ light sabres.

Early and rare Darth Vader figure among stand out lots in US auction of Kenner Star Wars toys
28 March 2018The sale of a well-known collection of Star Wars production figures has set new price levels at a Pennsylvania auction.

Summer Palace bronze up at auction in Canterbury
26 March 2018An exceptionally rare Western Zhou bronze, taken when the Summer Palace was sacked by British troops in 1860, has been discovered in a house in a Kent seaside town.

Classic Chinese works shine across New York Asia Week series
26 March 2018More than $120m of Asian art was sold at auction during last week’s New York Asia Week.

Clarice Cliff’s Age of Jazz back on centre stage
26 March 2018An American private collector bid £15,000 for a rare Clarice Cliff figure group at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury.

Rare models of bare-knuckle boxers sourced by Staffordshire specialists
26 March 2018Last week’s review of a recently published ebook on a Dallas collection of early English pottery included an image of a pair of figures of the famous bare-knuckle pugilists Thomas Cribb and Thomas Molineux.

Historic blue diamond to be auctioned at Sotheby’s Geneva
22 March 2018A historic diamond will appear on the market for the first time in history this spring, having remained in the same family for over three centuries.

Rare Chinese bronze ‘tiger’ vessel looted by British troops from Beijing’s Summer Palace found in Kent time capsule
22 March 2018An exceptionally rare Western Zhou bronze, taken when the Summer Palace was sacked by British troops in 1860, has been found in a house in a Kent seaside town.

Artefact from American Civil War sea battle comes to UK auction
19 March 2018The next arms and militaria auction at Woolley and Wallis will include a relic of a seminal American Civil War sea battle. This stout oak walking cane with a finely engraved gold top bears the inscription: A Piece of the Merrimack Destroyed May 11 1862 /James B Eads from Edward Bates. Quercus Ferro Cedit.