Auctioneers

A rare pair of bookends by Robert ‘Mouseman’ Thompson attracted huge interest and a remarkable £10,000 winning bid at Lawrences of Crewkerne.

The Antiquities Dealers’ Association (ADA) has said dealers and auctioneers should stand up to “the politicisation of the antiquities trade” in the wake of a row surrounding the sale of a £4m sculpture.

A Pre-Raphaelite drawing once owned by LS Lowry drew lively competition at the latest round of 19th century art sales in London.

Pieces from the late 19th century, a vibrant but occasionally derided moment in the history of the decorative arts, provided many of the highlights to Sworders’ summer Fine Interiors sale in Stansted Montfitchet.

The demand for 1960s Pulcini glass birds made by Alessandro Pianon (1931-64) for the Venetian company Vistosi has spiked in recent months.

Visit by auctioneer to a regular auction-goer’s apartment uncovers Wedgwood collection.

Pleased as the vendors were to be told by Gloucestershire auctioneer Martin Lambert that a 1920s trunk from their late parents’ home could be worth £2000, they were happier when pre-sale interest in Tayler & Fletcher’s recent sale brought a revised estimate of £2500-4000.

An “extremely rare” grouping of military items including a British 1899 issue leather hobnail boot with a shrapnel hole sold for £6500 at a Buckinghamshire auction on July 3.

Just four months after identifying two tiny compositional drawings as the work of John Constable (1776- 1837) and selling them for close to £90,000, west London saleroom Chiswick Auctions struck gold again with a third ‘rediscovered’ landscape.

The classic ‘orange’ Pulcini glass bird is deemed the most common of the five designed by Pianon.

Saved at the last minute from a skip, a collection of Aboriginal weapons drew worldwide interest at Martel Maides’ sale in St Peter Port, Guernsey.

An 1841 guide to London’s ladies of the night sold by Hansons for £3300 featured recently in ATG (No 2390), and one of the many rarities that emerged from the recent Gloucestershire sale of the late Martin Orsky’s library was a group of four 18th century broadsides advertising prostitutes.