Christie's

The overall total from the latest London series of Contemporary art auctions was down year-on-year. With one day sale still to run at the time of going to press, the running total of £197.4m from the sales at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips compared to £253.9m from the equivalent sales in 2019.

Star turn among some 120 lots of playing cards offered as part of a Stroud Auctions (18% buyer’s premium) sale was the last to be offered. A complete set of Charles Hodges’ Astronomical Playing Cards, it sold online for £3000.

The latest Impressionist & Modern auctions in London posted the lowest total for a February series in this category for a decade.

Two key consignments, one painting and one drawing, lifted the latest Old Master series in New York to the highest total for five years.

Willem Janszoon Blaeu is one of the more famous names in the history of map and globe making and at Christie’s (25/20/13.5/% buyer’s premium), the tiny pocket globe attributed to him shown here was sold for a treble-estimate £230,000.

Extraordinarily high prices paid for the works of the Russian writer Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev were noted in ATG No 2425, and there were many more lots of interest in the sale held by Christie’s (25/20/13.5% buyer’s premium) in which they were offered.

March is when Paris turns its attention to the world of drawings and works on paper.

‘Masterpieces’ from the celebrated collections of Dr Martin Schøyen offered at a recent Christie’s (25/20/13.5% buyer’s premium) sale in London included some real rarities.

Hopes are high that the market for traditional British sporting paintings could experience a boost in demand after a single-owner collection racked up over £2m at auction in London.

Sotheby’s holds the first of its New York series of Old Master paintings and drawings at the end of January with its Masters Week sales running from January 24-31.

It took just one sale to disperse a collection of pre-civil war silver painstakingly amassed in just over a quarter of a century at the rate of one piece a year.

The Design sale at Christie’s New York (25/20% buyer’s premium) on December 13 included the return to the auction room of one of the famous series of electroplated teapots made by James Dixon & Sons, Sheffield, c.1879, to designs by Christopher Dresser.

Dearth of fresh works coming to the market is a challenge for Old Master auction series.

Games manifesto from 1892 and Audubon’s classic head a selection of money-spinners.

Every year Paris plays host to a December Asian art auction series with a raft of sales at the Drouot auction centre and at the independent rooms across the French capital.