Auctioneers

Bonhams capitalised on the strong market for classical Chinese furniture to set the two highest prices of the London Asian art auction series.

A dozen customers of former Surrey auction house Fryer & Brown have joined forces to pursue the firm for their goods or money owed after it ceased trading at the beginning of the year.

This collection of late Qing dynasty Chinese hair ornaments fashioned as bats, flowers and foliage and set with kingfisher feathers, coral, jade and pearls is part of a group of 30 lots from the collection of Evelyn Williams Medows Norie (1862-1915) which is on offer at Bruun Rasmussen on November 29.

Autumn has been the setting for so many specialist sales round the regions that an all-disciplines, quality sale such as that held by Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (21% buyer’s premium) at Exeter on October 3 was almost a rarity.

What expert James Opie described as “the most intriguing collection I have ever come across” provided Rochester auction house C&T (18% buyer’s premium) with its biggest statement yet in the toy soldiers market.

British and Irish watercolours piqued the interest of bidders at Tennants’ (18.5% buyer’s premium) Country House sale in Leyburn on October 14.

The name on the frame was the name of the game at Charles Miller’s November 7 auction in west London where a “rather tired and dirty” sextant sold for £28,000.

Not many new faces at salerooms can include among their experience “a trained horse whisperer”.

Celebrating its 20th birthday in the British Museum’s refurbished Sir Joseph Hotung Gallery on November 9, the board of Asian Art in London was clearly proud of its achievements in promoting the city’s Asian art credentials.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

A botanical collection formed over several decades by DF Allen of Washington DC and sold on October 26 by Sotheby’s New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) was small in numbers but focused on the exceptional.

In business for 20-plus years, former Sotheby’s auctioneer Catherine Southon, founder of the eponymous auction house and antiques TV presenter, takes nothing for granted.

“I died in hell – they called it Passchendaele,” Siegfried Sassoon famously wrote of the First World War carnage which ended in November 1917.

A sale devoted to pieces by French designers and held in the French capital proved to be a winning formula for Sotheby’s (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) latest auction in this category on October 31.

Cirencester auction house Moore Allen & Innocent will offer a cache of uncensored letters written by a prominent First World War officer.