Decorative Art

It has the highest-ever estimate placed on a work of art at auction. Predicted to fetch ‘in the region of $140m’, Christie’s are offering Pablo Picasso’s ‘Les femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’)’ in New York on May 11.

Two large 18th century gold medals depicting events from the reign of Catherine the Great sold for spectacular sums at Duke’s latest auction in Dorchester.

Discovered in a pile of objects waiting to be tipped at a routine house clearance, a pair of large ceramic plaques will be offered at Gary Don in Leeds this week.

A Chelsea porcelain beaker with blue and white botanical decoration caused a sensation at Peter Wilson latest sale in Nantwich. Estimated at £100-200, it sold at £37,000.

Potteries Auctions in Staffordshire are offering this large William Moorcroft exhibition vase at their second auction in their new premises in Silverdale on April 25.

This Tiffany Studios c.1905 table lamp proved the highlight of Denhams’ recent fine art sale in Horsham, Sussex. It was an unusual visitor to the UK regional saleroom.

Sales of coins and medals at UK auctions have doubled in value over the past decade to £44.7m.

Delftware experts Aronson of Amsterdam have recently reunited this pair of c.1690 Delft ‘bouquetière’ figures depicting William and Mary.

The stock of the Austrian-born British studio potter Lucie Rie (1902-95) continues to rise in the saleroom.

A series of deals to safeguard the future of the Wedgwood Collection and ensure it will continue to be displayed in the Potteries have now been completed.

James Watson’s 1962 award for his work on DNA set a world record price for a Nobel Prize Medal at Christie’s in New York when it sold for $4.1m (£2.6m) hammer.

This copper-gilt coffin plate, bearing an inscription in Latin with the dates of Oliver Cromwell’s birth, death and inauguration as Lord Protector and the arms of the Protectorate to the reverse, was found when his body was exhumed from the Henry VII chapel at Westminster Abbey on January 26, 1661.

Christie’s New York are offering the 1962 Nobel Prize gold medal awarded to Dr James D. Watson, one of the world’s greatest living scientists.

A possibly unique electroplated coffee pot, designed by Christopher Dresser (1834-1904) and made by James Dixon & Sons in Sheffield, proved the highlight of Lyon & Turnbull’s sale auction ‘Decorative Arts: Design from 1860’ when it was knocked down for £80,000.

This Fabergé enamelled silver and hardstone cigarette box sold for £46,500 at the latest sale held at Nicholas Mellors of Newark.

It has taken just over a month for the Art Fund’s £2.74m appeal to save the Wedgwood Collection to reach its target. It will now be gifted to the V&A but will stay in situ at the Wedgwood Museum in Barlaston, near Stoke.

Soon after ATG reported that the public had contributed £700,000 in a matter of days to help the final push to save the Wedgwood archive, the news came through that close to £2m had been raised. Some £1.3m was donated in just four days.

The quarterly auction of silver and plated wares held by Fellows in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter on September 22 included a family collection of eight apostle spoons formed several generations ago.

The Christopher Foley collection of British commemorative medals will be sold at Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis on October 16. The sale is the most comprehensive of its type seen for a century or more.

With the Scottish referendum only weeks away, there could hardly be a better time to offer a replica of a reliquary which for centuries was a powerful symbol of Scotland’s national identity.