Auctioneers

The Jewellery, Watches and Objects of Vertu sale at Dix Noonan Webb (25% buyer’s premium) in London on March 15 included more fine silver and enamel vesta cases by Sampson Mordan & Co to add to those sold by the firm in September 2021.

Group of 18 lots sets a new level of demand and prices as recent trends drive strong interest

The last time this painting by David Teniers the younger (before 1610-90), depicting an alchemist in his workshop, was mentioned in a publication was back in 1877 and it comes to the market after having been in a Swiss family collection for over 200 years.

With more than 16,000 works on display, 'Art Treasures of Great Britain', held in a temporary iron-and-glass structure built in the Old Trafford area of Manchester in 1857, remains the largest art exhibition to be held in the UK.

Silver was the major strength of a recent two-day sale at Dreweatts (25% buyers’ premium). All bar one of the 549 lots got away to a hammer total tipping the £1m mark.

Highlights from Christie’s sales of works from the collection of Hubert de Givenchy, which are to be sold in Paris in June, are currently on a world tour that takes in the US: Palm Beach March 5-26; New York April 8-13 and Los Angeles April 27-29; then Hong Kong May 23-27 before returning to Paris.

An example of 17th century hollowware appeared for sale at Dawsons (23% buyer’s premium) in Maidenhead earlier this year.

Appealing to a range of different types of collectors, particularly aficionados of sewing antiques, Victorian and Edwardian animal pin cushions have their own niche in the novelty silver field.

Estimated at £20,000-30,000, this cast of the Warwick vase by John Samuel Hunt, London 1845, sold for £32,000.

Henry William Dee, the son of Soho silversmith Thomas William Dee (c.1792- 1869), made a speciality of producing silver novelties for Garrard, Leuchars & Son and Asprey’s and other retail goldsmiths. There was real genius here and the patterns for many were patented.

For many years the largest city outside London, Norwich had its own silver assay office during three periods from 1565-1702.

Many of the lots in an Oxford sale of February 23 formed part of the estate of Canadian linguistic and literary scholar, the late ‘Paddy’ Docker-Drysdale.

Billed as the star lot in a sale that ended on February 27, a scarce copy of the 1937 first issue of Dandy made a high-estimate £3450.

In the wake of new sanctions on Russia, auction houses Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Bonhams have cancelled sales of Russian art in London scheduled for June.

Two stoneware tavern bottles produced at John Dwight’s Fulham Pottery in the 1670s surfaced for sale in West Sussex earlier this month.

Dreweatts offered this market-fresh Henry Moore (1898-1986) figure group, 'Mother and Child', on March 16.

“At a time when gender, sexuality, identity and roles are being negotiated like never before, the story of Gerda and Einar Wegener has only become more topical despite the almost 100 years that have passed since the artwork was created.”