Auctioneers

With the defeat of Catholic attempts against the Protestant monarchy in the 17th and 18th centuries, penal laws were imposed in Ireland.

Letter informs George Washington of his election to the presidency.

Small Britannia standard silver bowls are the signature pieces the Scottish silversmith Michael Lloyd (c.1950).

Large slice of Big Apple auction is made up of European items from two consignments.

As hugely personal items and of relatively small melt value, spoons represent the great majority of English domestic silver items surviving from the pre-civil war period.

Bid to a double-estimate and record $24,000 (£18,460) at Freeman’s (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) of Philadelphia on October 14 was a complete and well-preserved example of publisher John Bell’s great Poets of Great Britain… collection.

A special focus on stand-out lots in decorative art & design auctions coming up this month.

A rare Charles II commemorative silver thimble sold for £980 at Bleasdales (20% buyer’s premium).

Bid online to a record £3200 in a Norfolk auction was one of 375 copies of a 1924 Nonesuch Press work comprising the first chapter of Genesis…, as illustrated with a dozen woodcuts by Paul Nash.

English edition of the most famous scientific book of all finally ends up in German hands.

Our weekly selection from salerooms.

Bonhams’ December 14 Chinese and Japanese works of Art sale in Los Angeles will include works from the Collection of Rosalind Ching Pastor.

The artist, cleric, schoolmaster and author William Gilpin (1724-1804) is best known as a champion of the Romantic idea of the picturesque.

Estimated at £6000-8000, an Anglo-Saxon bronze gaming piece – a metal-detecting find for the consignor – sold for £95,000 (plus premium) at the latest auction at TimeLine in Harwich, Essex.

London studio pottery specialist Maak achieved a record £200,000 (plus 20% buyer’s premium) for this vessel by Magdalene Odundo (b.1950).

A total of £9.23m was raised from the latest dedicated sales of Modern British art at Sotheby’s and Bonhams in London.

Sotheby’s (26/21/14.9% buyer’s premium) Important Chinese Art sale on November 4 included two spectacular Qing dragon dishes – both consigned from continental European sources and both in near-perfect condition.

Unpublished work by mathematician John Wallis who was also a major influence in code breaking sells at Dominic Winter