Auctioneers

From a 5000-year-old pictographic tablet to a 5th century bible leaf - a small but fascinating London auction.

Shropshire auction house Trevanion & Dean has taken on four new members of staff as joint founder Aaron Dean has chosen to leave and Christina Trevanion has taken on sole ownership of the firm.

The first Olympic gold medal won by a British woman in an individual swimming event has been bought by her home town for public display.

The prolific artist Percy Kelly (1918-93) was averse to the limelight and only a few of his paintings were shown publicly during his life. But a major retrospective at the Tullie House gallery Carlisle in 2015 and a birth centenary last year has helped raise the Cumbrian artist’s profile.

Inspired by LS Lowry, the self-taught Mancunian artist Fred Yates (1922-2008) set out to paint pictures about the lives of ordinary people. These canvases – ranging from the industrial architecture and street life of Manchester to the sunnier scenes he painted after his move to Cornwall in 1969 – attract a loyal following on the secondary market.

Rugby is said to be akin to a religion in Wales and Cardiff saleroom Rogers Jones (18% buyer’s premium inc VAT) has scored impressively in recent years with related lots – such as the auction record for a shirt.

This 9ct Rolex Tudor wristwatch below was presented by the Northern Irish FA to forward Derek Dougan, known by his nickname ‘The Doog’.

Our weekly selection from salerooms.

Estimated at £400-600, a Chinese porcelain vase was bid to £1.3m at an auction in Hampshire last week.

This Italian marble bust of an emperor, catalogued as 17th century after the antique, provided a moment of saleroom drama at Sworders’ Fine Interiors auction in Stansted on September 10.

George du Maurier (1834-96) joined the staff at Punch magazine in 1865, drawing two ink cartoons a week until his eyesight deteriorated in 1891. His most common targets were the affected manners of Victorian society and Britain’s growing middle class in particular.

A gold, jade and rock crystal model of a sedan chair by Fabergé was hammered down at £380,000 last week – a new house record for a Gloucestershire auctioneer.

Sotheby’s opened its September Asia Week auctions in New York on September 10 with the $8.3m sale of Chinese art consigned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Entered by a vendor who hated them, a pair of 6in (15.5cm) long 19th century nutcrackers reflected in their way two different aspects of auctioneering today: how smaller country firms see their future and what will happen to antique ivory items when most of the trade in them is banned.

A busier than usual summer for the local housing market appeared to boost both vendor consignments and bidding at Market Harborough auctioneers Gildings (18% buyer’s premium).