Auctioneers

The man himself may have disappeared in 1974 but a series of cheques showing Lord Lucan’s spiralling gambling debts have now emerged and will be offered at auction later this month.

An important collection of early chess pieces will be offered as part of Sotheby’s Islamic sale in London on April 20.

John Wood the Elder’s (1704-54) set of drawing instruments were offered at Clevedon Auction Rooms earlier this month and were bought by the Bath Preservation Trust for £21,000.

London-based Criterion Auctioneers are to launch quarterly auctions in Wiltshire, targeting high-value consignments from around the UK.

An Eric Ravilious (1903-42) watercolour has emerged at Sworders of Essex and will be among the star lots at their first dedicated Modern British Art sale next month.

A previously unrecorded copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio has emerged at Christie’s. Estimated at £800,000-1.2m, it will lead a specially-staged auction in May comprising just four lots – a copy of each of the first four Shakespeare folios.

The Design Museum will be reopening at its new site in London on November 24. It had originally been thought that the relaunch would be in the summer.

Among the lots drawing competition at the latest picture sale held by Mallams of Oxford was a hilltop view of the Sussex landscape by Hannah Gluckstein (1895-1978).

An important work by Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) will be among the leading lots on offer at this summer’s auction series in London. Lot and his Daughters from c.1613-14 will be the centrepiece of Christie’s newly launched ‘curated’ week of sales branded Classic Week in July.

An original example of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic sold for €185,000 at Whyte’s of Dublin yesterday. Estimated at €150,000-250,000, the document published by the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army was one of only 40-50 known copies left in existence and it drew competition from two phone bidders, one from Ireland and the other from the US who ended up as the successful buyer.

A 16th century Tibetan gilt-bronze figure of the Buddhist deity Green Tara sold to an international bidder for £15,500 at Bellmans in Wisborough Green – a coup for the vendor who had paid just £25 for it at a car boot fair.

Very much the pièce de résistance of Bonhams’ first oak interior sale held in their New Bond Street rooms was the final lot of the day, a 23 x 17in (58.5 x 44.5cm) Tudor oak panel carved in high relief with a portrait of a king holding an orb and sceptre, thought to represent King John.

A medieval ring long associated with Joan of Arc sold for £240,000 – almost 30 times its estimate – at Timeline Auctions in Bloomsbury on February 25.

The shake-up at Sotheby’s continued last week as more key senior employees – including Henry Wyndham – depart the company.

Bonhams say they are “reorganising operations” after Magnus Renfrew, the company’s deputy chairman in Asia, was laid off along with seven other members of staff based in Hong Kong.

Rupert Powell has resigned as deputy chairman of Bloomsbury Auctions where he has worked for 31 years. He will work out a notice period.

The highlight of Bainbridges latest sale in West Ruislip was a 1560 Geneva Bible which sold for £8500.

Dix Noonan Webb have achieved the second highest price for a George Cross just eight months after selling the GC awarded to the secret agent Violette Szabo for a record £260,000.

The auditors for Stanley Gibbons, the venerable collectables dealership and parent company of Dreweatts Bloomsbury, Mallett and AH Baldwin, have resigned because they believe the firm is exposed to excessive risk.

The so-called Lucerne pattern, decorated in primary colours with a stylised Mediterranean chateau in a landscape, ranks among the scarcest and most desirable of all designs from Clarice Cliff’s ‘Appliqué’ range.