Collectables

This single-sheet letter was written by Catherine de Medici (1519-89) to the ambassador to Spain.

The 'International Exhibition of Modern Art' held at the 69th Regiment Armory building in New York from February 15 to March 15, 1913, ushered in a new era for the art market.

What Special Auction Services (20% buyer’s premium) in Newbury billed as “the largest and most valuable doll collection to been seen at auction for 25 years” went under the hammer on February 22 with a further slice to come in April.

As with many 1980s toys, the Thundercats range was produced to accompany a TV or film series.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish books and works on paper auctions

John Nicholson’s (25% buyer’s premium) Fine Paintings sale in Fernhurst on February 20 included a good example of The Pictorial Missionary Map of the World - a rarity that appears at auction perhaps once in every decade.

Our selection of lots from 12 upcoming UK auctions

The aristocratic German artist, composer, dancer, mime, poet, singer and translator Hans Henning Otto Harry Baron von Voigt (1887-1969) is best known by his pen name. From 1914 he went simply by the pseudonym Alastair.

A long-forgotten group of letters written by senior members of Scott and Shackleton’s first trailblazing 1901 expedition to the Antarctic has been discovered.

A French three-colour gold snuff box was a highlight of the silver and vertu section of Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne’s recent winter sale.

Soon after the Italian coin engraver Benedetto Pistrucci moved to England in 1815, he received a prestigious task from William Wellesley-Pole, the Master of the Mint. He was commissioned with the creation of a series of new gold coins for George III.

Film and TV stars must be a forgetful bunch, if lots sold at two recent UK auctions are anything to go by.

One of the earliest pieces in the auction of works of art at Koller in Zürich on March 21 is a copper and enamel figure of a dove.