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THE most desirable of the varied wares produced by the small ceramics factory established by Vilmos Zsolnay (1828-1900) in the southwest Hungarian town of Pecs are those created after the 1890s. It was then that Zsolnay – having encountered the glazes of Clement Massier in Paris – perfected his Eosine glaze and employed his principle designer Tade Sikorski to model forms sympathetic to the Art Nouveau and Jugendstil movements.

THE Chelsea Flower Show may be just a fading memory, but Hove-based organiser Cindy Mainwaring, who has been putting together popular monthly fairs at Chelsea Old Town Hall for the past 26 years, is determined her fair this Sunday will be blooming.

IN the eyes of many of today’s collectors, it is the realist interiors, which range from old farm buildings to grand rooms, and the figure subjects of William Henry Hunt (1790-1864), which are most desirable, a fact highlighted by the artist’s sale results.

WHAT do the Society of Women Artists (SWA), founded in 1855, and Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers (RMS), founded in 1896, have in common?

SCIENCE books in a June 24 sale held by Bloomsbury Auctions included a 1647, Danzig first of Hevelius’ Selenographia, the first lunar atlas, illustrated with a portrait and 111 plates (one with volvelle), mostly engraved by the author from drawings that he made in the observatory that he had equipped with instruments he had built himself.

THE High Court has barred the former directors of now-bankrupt Interactive Collector Ltd from serving as directors of any British company for a period of seven years.

SHEER decorative exuberance helped this Roman mosaic panel, c.2nd century AD, right, sell to an American private collector for $260,000 (£141,305), almost triple the upper estimate at Sotheby’s New York (20/12% buyer's premium) sale of June 9.