Auctioneers

Satirical magazine Private Eye once ran a series highlighting the fatuity of interviews by supposedly asking famous names their feelings towards spoons, there being nothing more mundane or less worthy of comment. But the appeal of an antique spoon to the cognoscenti is not difficult to appreciate.

Guide to the prostitutes and brothels of London tempts bidders at Staffordshire sale.

On May 17, Cologne auction house Lempertz is selling 115 bronze mortars from the 8th-18th centuries.

“Such is the wealth of East Anglian artists I don’t think there is another region in the UK that can compete. The Cornish tradition comes close, but it goes back only 100 years – the East Anglian tradition goes back way longer.”

Offered as a sale within a sale, 34 silver snuff boxes and vinaigrettes came fresh to market at Lawrences’ April 9 sale after decades in a private collection.

Two cased Stuart Devlin silver gilt surprise eggs of unique designs sold for £4400 at 1818 Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) in Milnthorpe on April 1.

Three oils by the popular East Anglian artist Edward Seago (1910-74) sold for £44,000 hammer at Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium) in a mammoth four-day sale held at its Sussex saleroom.

An Elkington electroplated duck press outsold silver proper at Halls (20% buyer’s premium) of Shrewsbury on March 20.

The biggest surprise at the sale of works of art at Koller (25/22/15% buyer’s premium) in Zurich on March 28 was the result for a bronze figure by Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier (1815-91).

On account of its relative scarcity, all Irish silver carries a premium. It is the pieces made in small provincial centres that are most highly prized.

Some 150 lots of books formed part of a recent Irish auction held at Fortgranite, Baltinglass, in Co Wicklow, the home for over 200 years of the Dennis family.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

After almost 50 years on public display in the silver galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, a James I silver shell-form spice or sugar box was offered for sale at Salisbury saleroom Woolley & Wallis.

An early illustration by the ‘Glasgow Girl’ Jessie Marion King (1875-1949) emerged as one of the high points of a Decorative Arts: Design from 1860 sale at Edinburgh saleroom Lyon & Turnbull (25/20% buyer’s premium) on April 3.

Offered as a part of the natural history section of a May 14 book sale at Sotheby’s (25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) is an extremely rare photobook on New Zealand ferns by Herbert Boucher Dobbie issued c.1880 – no copy of which, it seems, has previously been seen at auction.

The inscription London on the barrels of this pair of 19th century, silver-mounted flintlock pistols is entirely spurious.

A very rare panorama of London that made £90,000 in a recent West Sussex sale was the Pick of the week in ATG No 2387, but many other things among the 200 lots offered in that April 5 auction caught the eye.

As a rule, Lempertz (24/20% buyer’s premium) in Cologne always opens its spring season with a sale of moderately priced Old Master and 19th century paintings.