Auctioneers

Bishop & Miller is expanding into Norfolk this autumn with a new saleroom and team.

A remarkable Sèvres part tea service made to mark the recovery of George III from illness in 1789 was among the unheralded highlights of this year’s London sales season.

A suite of solid ivory and gilt furniture sold by Christie’s on July 7 appears to be the first auction lot to benefit from the exemption to the Ivory Act allowing the sale of items of ‘outstandingly high artistic, cultural and historical value’.

It was rather thin pickings at the latest series of Old Master auctions in London.

The major summer sales of works of art included a boxwood prayer nut and Rothschild provenanced vases.

Despite appearing in a 1930s photograph held in the MAK Museum, Vienna, this wood carving of Adam and Eve seems to have hitherto eluded scholars of the German woodcarver Leonhard Kern (1588-1662).

Bonhams has closed its coin and medals department in London and specialist John Millensted will now work as a consultant to the firm.

Topping the bill at Dore & Rees in Frome, Somerset on July 6 was this 2in (5cm) archaeological revival brooch by Castellani.

Pictured here is one of two very successful lots relating to the career of Houdini that were sold in a Chicago auction.

A good number of lots offered at Great Western Auctions (24% buyer’s premium) on June 17-18 demonstrated the demand that can emerge for works on paper pitched at attractive levels.

The queen’s menacing message to Protestant courtiers makes an auction appearance

Thomas Sandby’s (1721-98) architectural drawings are significant part of the artist’s oeuvre.

An ancient Egyptian cartonnage Mummy mask was the top-selling lot in an auction of Antiquities held by Hindman (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) in Chicago.

You reported on the front page of the ATG (No 2550) that Bonhams has added another auction house to its expanding stable.

Offered as part of a New York sale held by Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) were the two imaginative aerial views reproduced here.

Among the 20th century works on paper generating demand at regional sales in the last few months was a Keith Vaughan (1912-77) study of a group of bathers.

For collectors on a budget, works on paper can provide a more accessible route to acquiring works by key artists.

Swann Auction Galleries is holding a sale of vintage posters in New York on August 4.