Auctioneers

As the battle for the ‘middle market’ heats up, the London auction scene today offers visitors a wider choice of items to buy and more places to bid for them.

Two studies by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones for his 1868 oil Hymenaeus will soon be reunited with the finished painting.

A pre-press version of a key map of colonial America emerged for sale at Swann Auction Galleries in New York on June 6. Carrying an estimate of $30,000-50,000, it sold at $100,000/£76,900 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) – a sum that reflected its extraordinary provenance.

A Chinese parcel gilt bronze censer, that was being used to hold tennis balls when first seen by valuers last year, has sold at auction in Switzerland for close to £3.3m.

Folk art (or art populaire as it is known in France) has gained an increased following over the years.

In the dispersal by Hansons (20% buyer’s premium) of the collections of Harold and Mary Wilson, the book section included copies of John Maynard Keynes’ 'General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money' of 1936 and 'A Treatise on Money' of 1933.

Auction house Fellows is holding two special events in July and is offering ATG readers a discount on tickets.

Mallams (20% buyer’s premium) offered 12 impeccably provenanced pieces by Peter Waals (1870-1937) at Oxford on May 23.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

More of a curiosity than a clock but a decorator’s dream, a life-size caricature of a smiling Chinese man clutching a willow-pattern plate with gilt dragon hands emerged in the Ayr rooms of Thomas R Callan (17.5% buyer’s premium).

The sale of a remarkable gramophone collection two years ago at the Cotswold Auction Company (20% buyer’s premium), in which an EMG gramophone took £6500, prompted the consignment of another large collection to the June 4 sale at the Cheltenham rooms.

Early magazine runs brought some unexpectedly high prices in the latest of the regular golfing literature sales held by a Californian saleroom.