Auctioneers

SOTHEBY’S have posted $4.9bn in worldwide sales for 2011, marginally up on 2010. The United States remains the company's primary market, accounting for just over $1.9bn of sales, with the UK second at $1.5bn. Continental Europe yielded $527m, while Asia - largely Hong Kong-based sales - totalled $959m.

THE Oak Sale at Bonhams Chester is not the obvious place to find a 16th century Indo-Portuguese chair. Hiding in plain sight at the January 19 auction of predominantly British vernacular design was a rare survivor.

AT Waterloo, Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852) is supposed to have directed the battle from a position near the crossroads of the Brussels and Ohain roads.

THE small factory at Limehouse, operating on the banks of the Thames just to the east of the Tower of London from 1745-1748, was one of the pioneers of English porcelain manufacture.

ANTIQUE and secondhand jewellery valued at £430,000 has been stolen during a break-in at an auction house in south Glasgow following what appears to have been a carefully planned and meticulously timed raid.

The single-owner sale of English and Dutch drinking glasses collected by A.C. Hubbard offered over 500 lots to tempt enthusiasts into the saleroom.

THIS alabaster sculpture by Barbara Hepworth (1903-75), entitled Two Rotating Forms II and dated to 1966, began the new year in style for Sworders.

SOTHEBY’S Paris have announced that they have negotiated a private treaty sale to the Louvre for an undisclosed sum of a pair of silver tureens, covers, liners and stands by the French goldsmith Robert-Joseph Auguste.

In clock collecting, the gold standard of original condition can be a difficult one to meet. Clocks almost always needing repairs or replacement parts to keep functioning day in, day out for centuries.

The much-anticipated 642-lot sale of the Prospero collection of classical Greek coins conducted by A.H. Baldwin & Sons of London (in association with Dmitry Markov of New York and M&M Numismatics Ltd of Washington DC) concluded after eight hours at 03.30 EST on January 5.

Hansons Auctioneers have opened a new permanent saleroom in Etwall, five miles from Derby city centre. The inaugural sale in the new premises will take place on Thursday, January 19.

AS sales go, it is hard to imagine one that could have been more of an auctioneer’s dream than the collection of Elizabeth Taylor’s jewellery and personal possessions.

The range of British die-casts is so massive that enthusiasts tend to narrow the field and collect either by factory, period, vehicle type, category – or a combination of these. Nostalgia has a big part to play.

VECTIS have auctioned some exceptional Dinky collections over the past decade, but what made the David Ireland collection sale stand out was quality over quantity.

Old collections are the lifeblood of the arms and armour market, bringing carefully selected items with cast-iron provenance back to the market.

Moorcroft Boy recorded one of the great comebacks in racing history when he recovered from a horrific injury at Aintree in 1995 to win the Scottish National the following year.

THIS well-preserved Charles II delft portrait charger established a new house record for Rosebery's of West Norwood in south east London on December 13 with a hammer price of £105,000.

FAME, rarity and the finest provenance propelled a c.1795 gilded and painted Worcester vase and cover to a predictable top spot at the latest sale held by Brightwells at Leominster.

ONLY two Scottish 17th century lace-back spoons are recorded by the National Museum of Scotland so this example offered by Dreweatts at Donnington Priory was quite a rarity.

THE selectivity in the Chinese ceramics and works of art market seen in London in early November was repeated during Christie’s and Bonhams’ latest Asian series in Hong Kong.