Auctioneers

The Voluntary Aid Detachments (VAD) comprised volunteer civilians providing care to British, Empire and allied troops during the First World War, both in field hospitals near to the battlefield and in more established places of recuperation back home.

Among the contemporaries of André Charles Boulle, who perfected the complex form of marquetry that bears his name, was the Parisian ebeniste Nicolas Sageot.

A lively 17th century painting showing people in a Flemish tavern, drinking, smoking and playing cards with a man playing the bagpipes will be among the lots at Bellmans’ Old Master & 19th Century Paintings auction in Wisborough Green, West Sussex, on March 29.

If a full-size Victoria Cross medal group is beyond your price range, a lot sold at Adam Partridge (20% buyer’s premium inc VAT) is perhaps the next best thing.

Although the French inventor Charles-Xavier Thomas de Colmar introduced the first model of his calculating machine Arithmomètre in 1820, he waited some 30 years before he started producing them in series.

Despite a general lack of provenance, Tudor house owner had clearly been well advised

Formed by a local man, the late Brian Ferguson, a collection of over 40 books issued by the Golden Cockerel Press featured in an auction held by Thomson Roddick (18% buyer’s premium) of Carlisle.

Among the Old Masters in Roseberys’ sale on March 22 is this painting depicting a view of Venice by Jacopo Fabris (1689-1761). It shows the Fondaco dei Turchi, a palazzo on the Grand Canal.

A number of UK auction houses have stopped taking bids from buyers in Russia in response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

This early 17th century English carved and inlaid oak court cupboard or buffet was the highlight of a sale in Doncaster.

A Surrealist painting by René Magritte (1898-1967) led the latest round of Modern and Contemporary art sales in London.

Found in a wardrobe during the clearance of a deceased estate in Spalding, ‘a group of four early 19th century French heraldic plaques’ sold way over hopes at Stamford Auction Rooms in Lincolnshire on February 26.

French auction reform took another step forward last month with the creation of a new regulatory body to oversee sales in France.

A collection of works from the family of the sculptor Sir William Reid Dick (1879-1961) comes for sale at a new London firm this month.

Former champion jockey Joe Mercer 1934-2021) was a keen buyer of racing memorabilia.

The two signed photo-portraits of writers reproduced here formed part of a November 17-December 1 sale held by Christie’s (15/20/14.5% buyer’s premium) that dispersed a single-owner collection of literary manuscripts billed as Exiles and Idealists.

With the discovery of the intact tomb of Tutankhamun in 1923, an Egyptian revival swept through the decorative arts. Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels were among the first to design jewels that mixed Egyptian motifs with the geometry and bold colours of the Art Deco era. But other French, British and US ateliers soon followed.

Emerging artists and those out of the limelight become popular as buyers look for new names