Auctioneers

The last weekend of the month, May 25-27, is given over to the latest staging of the Journées Marteau (Art Auctioneers Days) held by the French auctioneers’ association SYMEV.

Delayed by snow for a week, the Spring Sale at Chorley’s (20% buyer’s premium) on March 27 opened with a local collection of Republic-era (1912-49) porcelain.

Weschlers’ mixed-owner Capital Collections sale in Rockville, Maryland, on May 11 will offer a very wide range of fine and decorative arts.

The feast from the east that that has put bread (and some Michelin-starred meals) on the table of dealers and auctioneers for more than a decade continues to do so at sales from Scotland to Surrey.

Well-situated on the North Yorkshire coast, Scarborough saleroom David Duggleby (21% buyer’s premium) is the regular recipient of pictures associated with one of the area’s biggest artistic exports.

Published in 1895, Wright & Dixon’s Guide to American Golf… was one of the very first books on the game to appear in that country. A copy sold on April 12 in San Francisco for $42,500 (£29,930) was billed as “perhaps the only copy extant”.

Multi-estimate sums proved the norm among the star lots during London’s Islamic Week auction series.

Chinese porcelain resumed its traditional dominance among the Oriental offerings at Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) in Leyburn.

Three more modestly valued works drawing attention at recent regional sales below £1500 included a Venetian view by English painter Peter Kuhfeld.

One of the smallest but most eye-catching lots at the Oriental sale at Bonhams Edinburgh (25% buyer’s premium) was two 4¼in (11cm) high Manchu officials’ bronze seals.

Works by the flamboyant Lord Berners come to auction from Faringdon House contents sale.

Early works painted before an artist has adopted their signature style can make for intriguing viewing – especially if that artist is widely known.

First such pocket atlas published in England leads a look at highly diverse auction selection

Printed for circulation only among members of the imperial family and those foreign dignitaries who had participated in the celebrations, an album recording the 1883 coronation in Moscow of Tsar Alexander III and the Empress Marie Feodorovna sold for $30,000 (£21,125) in a US sale.

Several decades ago, when China was shut to the Western world, encounters with foreigners were understandably rare.

Estimated at £10,000-15,000, a pair of James II silver candlesticks sold at £62,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) at the Woolley & Wallis silver sale in Salisbury.

Huanghuali furniture in the form of a late Ming/ early Qing ping tou-an (recessed legs table) starred in the Oriental section of Brightwells’ (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale in Leominster.

Bound in recent times as six volumes in elaborately gilt crushed scarlet morocco, a 1614-17 Prague first of a major commentary on the Mishnah by Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller (1579-1654), was a highlight of a recent New York sale of Judaica.

The world of Chinese art remains open to collectors on modest budgets if they look to some of the less fashionable wares, those from later periods and pieces that carry damage.