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British medals are realising ever higher prices and it seems that buyers almost invariably hail from these sceptred isles.

A new auction high for the Neapolitan Impressionist Vincenzo Irolli (1860-1949) was established by Sotheby’s (20-15.42% buyer’s premium, excluding VAT) last month in Milan when they offered this oil on canvas entitled La Pesca Fortunata (A good haul) in their sale of 19th century pictures on December 13.

Top Right: it may be badly damaged but this 4 1/2in (10.5cm) high Lowestoft blue and white teapot and cover is an exceptionally rare and documentary piece.

The Victoria and Albert Museum will open a new Portrait Miniatures Gallery on March 2.

SOME areas of the art market seem impervious to the changing winds of taste. One is quality pictures of great European cities by recognised artists which appeal across the usual boundaries of generations and national borders.

Formed by screenwriter and director Andrew Birkin during research for a trilogy of plays, The Lost Boys (first broadcast in 1978) and for his biography of J.M. Barrie, a 19-lot collection that tells the story of his friendship with the Llewelyn-Davies boys and the emergence of one of the best known characters in all of children’s literature, Peter Pan, attracted a great deal of media publicity before being put up for sale at Sotheby’s on December 16.

STUDENTS at Southampton Institute will benefit from a five-year bursary programme set up by the Society of Fine Art Auctioneers and Valuers and funded by former SOFAA chairman Christopher Weston.