Auctioneers

Inaugural Forum standalone auction achieves impressive results in south London

Among the most desirable of the Chinese export porcelain patterns made for the Dutch market is the so-called ‘skating lesson’ design.

A Mouseman single wardrobe with panelled adzed decoration sold for £7400 against a guide of £4000-6000 at Summersgills (18% buyer’s premium) in Easingwold, North Yorkshire.

A decade ago V&A curators used an X-ray to discover what was inside a vintage Christmas cracker made in the 1920s by the Tom Smith company without having to actually pull it. This revealed a small chocolate.

Contrasting contraptions both sell for strong five-figure sums in salerooms north and south

The golden age of topaz was the 18th and early 19th century.

Although he produced numerous bronze figures for public monuments and decorative elements for religious building, the German sculptor Ewald Mataré (1887-1965) is best known for his numerous figures of cows in a multitude of styles from realistic to cubistic.

A group of three works by LS Lowry (1887-1976) consigned from two separate sources appeared in a recent sale at Dawsons (27.5% buyer’s premium) in Maidenhead, Berkshire.

The Wurlitzer Company was founded in the US in 1856 and the Centennial 2000 jukebox model was created to commemorate the centenary anniversary.

Inventive pieces that can be broken down into modular elements – transformable jewels – began with the French parure in the court of Louis XIV.

A recent sale at Halls (24% buyer’s premium) in Shrewsbury included an exceptional Swiss music box: a Sublime Harmony orchestral music box by George Baker & Co, Geneva.

Holbeinesque is the term used to describe Victorian jewellery inspired by the Northern Renaissance and the jewels shown in the paintings and sketches of Hans Holbein.

A first edition of Agatha Christie’s Five Little Pigs published by The Crime Club (Collins), London 1942, was consigned to Wessex Auction Rooms (24% buyer’s premium) by the family of Phyllis Rice, housekeeper to the author at Greenway House.

An extremely rare survival from the nine-day reign of Lady Jane Grey, one of the more dramatic episodes in English history, came to market on February 25.