Auctioneers

A notable of feature of the Post-War and Contemporary art market is the wide variety of mediums employed.

The works of French painter André Masson (1896-1987) are regarded as a bridge between Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism.

Launched in 1956, La Biennale des Antiquaires, now an annual event known as La Biennale Paris, is one of the world’s longest-established and best-known art and antiques fairs.

The allure of well-priced, market-fresh chattels from a blue-blood country estate can pique the interest of the most world-weary auctioneer or antiques dealer.

Inscribed copies of the works of Dodie Smith were among the attractions of a summer sale held by Stride & Son (18% buyer’s premium) of Chichester.

Interest from overseas bidders appears to be lifting the market for Banksy (b.1974) prints to a higher level.

Coinex, the traditional autumn focus for the numismatic world, is cancelled this year.

A Military Cross group awarded to a soldier who carried a fallen comrade through fierce gunfire in Iraq sold at £36,000 (plus 20% buyer ’s premium) in Macclesfield on September 11.

This 9in (23cm) Qing blue and white porcelain bowl decorated in underglaze blue with squirrels in fruiting bears a Qianlong (1736-95) six-character seal mark and is probably of the period.

A work on paper by Czech artist Mikulas Medek (1926- 1971) drew strong competition at Chiswick Auctions’ (25% buyer’s premium) latest British & European Fine Art sale.

Plenty of Dickensian lots were on offer in a sale held by US saleroom PBA Galleries (20/15% buyer’s premium).

The auction record for modern Guyanese artist Aubrey Williams (1926-1990) was broken three times at auctions in the south of England this summer.

North Yorkshire saleroom Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) has a solid track-record with the artist Joash Woodrow (1927-2006). Eight of his top 10 auction prices are held by the Leyburn saleroom (source: Artprice by Artmarket).

Stand-out lot in a travel, map and natural history sale held by Sotheby’s (25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) was a grand and elaborately cased set of the monumental 'Description de l’Egypte' of 1809-22.

An auction record for Grayson Perry’s (b.1960) 'Britain is Best', a limited edition coloured embroidery depicting five loyalists from East Belfast, was set at Phillips (25% buyer’s premium) in London on September 10.

When, following the October Revolution of 1917, the Bolshevik government took control of the Imperial Porcelain Factory, large quantities of glazed but unpainted white hard-paste porcelain plates, cups and saucers remained at the site.

Aston’s Auctioneers & Valuers in Dudley is to close and its final sale – a sci-fi toy collection – will be held next month.

This 4in (10cm) silver snuff box offered for sale at Veilinghuis de Jager in Goes, Zeeland was the subject of a learned article in the January-February Ghendtsche Tydingen, the magazine of the Ghent history society.