Auctioneers

Pitched at £200-300, this Russian diptych icon shown below triggered wide pre-sale Russian and East European interest ahead of Elstob & Elstob’s 20% buyer’s premium) sale at Bedale.

This Resolution and Adventure medal is one of 2000 that were commissioned by the British Admiralty ahead of James Cook’s Second Voyage.

Artist famous for his busy panoramic scenes also profited from intimate female portraits

The most famous book from the first years of printing using moveable type is the Bible produced by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz in the mid-1450s, but in Hamburg on November 25 Ketterer Kunst will be offering another very rare and early Bible.

The catalogue description correctly read ‘Art Nouveau silver powder bowl by Gilbert Marks, hallmark London 1900, weight approx 8.79oz, 273.4gms, decorated with stylised thistles repousse’.

In a sale of Modern and Contemporary British art in south London, this undated work House and Trees below sold for a multi-estimate £5800.

In a move to increase its digital presence and reach new bidders, Bonhams has agreed a long- term partnership with Auction Technology Group, owner of online auction marketplace thesaleroom.com.

A fine private collection amassed in the 1960s provided the base for the inaugural Russian Coins & Historical Medals sale held by Dix Noonan Webb (24% buyer’s premium).

Many figures involved in the booming 19th century art industry of livestock portraiture had no formal training.

Shown below are the frontispiece and title-page of Newes from the East-Indies..., a 1638 account by William Bruton of his travels in ‘Bengalla’.

Several records were broken when all 442 lots in the Glynn & Suzanne Crain science-fiction collection sold in a US auction on August 13-14.

The first printed copy of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica was published in Strasbourg as early as c.1475 with subsequent versions printed in Vienna (1513), Strasbourg again (1500), Haguenau (1506), Paris (1544) and Antwerp (1550).

Punching well above its weight, a 9ct gold Lonsdale Championship boxing trophy presented to legendary Glaswegian champion Benny Lynch was the top draw at Fellows’ (23% buyer’s premium) sale in Birmingham.

At the budget-price end of the Chinese boom – which tends to get overlooked – profits are there for the keen eyed, such as the vendor of this twin-handled censer shown here.

Underlining the market move from antique furniture to 20th century craftsman design, a 1982-83 chest of drawers set a record for a work by Alan Peters at the Modern British Living sale at Mallams (22.5% buyer’s premium) in Cheltenham.