Auctioneers

A previously unrecorded teabowl and saucer attributed to a pioneering American porcelain factory is expected to bring a six-figure sum when offered for sale in Salisbury next month.

Auctions on New Year’s Day are a tradition in regional North America. The sale at Nadeau’s in Windsor, Connecticut, on the first day of 2019 included a collection of 17th and 18th century English silver that had been given to Yale University in 1896 in memory of a former alumnus, the Pennsylvania coal baron James Browne Neale.

Serendipity had it that three early pieces of European pottery and glass – two of them dated – were offered for sale across a trio of English regional auctions in a matter of days in December.

At the very end of the 15th century, in Venice in December 1499, there emerged from the presses of that city’s most famous printer, Aldus Manutius, what is traditionally described as the most beautiful illustrated printed book of the Italian Renaissance.

Bound as two volumes in contemporary red morocco gilt, its plates and plans finely coloured and gilt heightened throughout, an exceptional example of Joan Blaeu’s celebrated 17th century townbook of the Netherlands was offered in a recent American sale.

Since 1994, the New York businessman Richard Baron Cohen has been a welcome guest at international auctions, fairs and dealers.

Painted as a birthday gift, a portrait of one of the more popular characters in the annals of American children’s literature, Eloise, sold for $80,000 (£62,675) at Bonhams New York (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on December 5.

Dated April 5, 1768, the simple printed broadside shown below lays down the ‘Rules…’ that apply to those wishing to use the Circulating Library in Ashbo[u]rne in Derbyshire.

Four works sold in Essex auction could be part of Marks’ Eaton Hall commission.

While five-figure sums for top-end 20th century design furniture are familiar in the international centres of New York, Paris and London, fewer pieces appear in the UK regional market.

German and Latin versions of ‘Nuremburg Chronicle’ impress in separate sales.

This Chinese export porcelain punch bowl will feature in a large two-day sale of more than 750 lots of Americana and international interest at Pook & Pook in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, on January 11-12.

Portraits of prize-winning racing pigeons are the latest must-haves in decorative collecting circles, judging by a recent spate of high prices in the regions.