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SOLD at £1200 to Jarndyce in this sale of photographs, historical documents, autographs and ephemera was an 1838 manuscript of The Student, a play by Frederick Bate.

SWITZERLAND: A mammoth four-day mixed sale of just under 2700 lots was held in Zürich by Galerie Koller (18%/16%/12% buyer’s premium) from March 19–23. This comprised furniture, carpets, decorative arts, jewellery, clocks, fine art and books and the auctioneers felt that the results confirmed the stability of the market for material of the best quality.

A pair of ornamental blue and gold vases made by the Manufacture Impériale in St Petersburg (c.1825-30) soared to €520,000 (£335,000) at Beaussant-Lefèvre on April 10.

THE British Museum is being advised to sell off up to a fifth of its ‘spare’ exhibits to raise funds. The museum is already being forced to sell off valuable property and shed up to 180 jobs – including vital conservation posts – to stave off bankruptcy a year before its 250th anniversary.

“It was like the 1970s all over again,” said John Benjamin of Woolley and Wallis, describing the breadth of quality at his jewellery sale in Salisbury on April 24-25.

ROBERT Lenkiewicz, one of Britain’s most controversial artists, has been burgled for the third time in five weeks in what is widely believed to be a ‘stolen to order’ theft.

This marquetry panel, right, was one of the distinguishing features of a much-altered kingwood bonheur du jour which highlighted Dreweatt Neate’s (15 per cent buyer’s premium) furniture and works of art sale on March 27.