Auctioneers

The global market for Asian art congregates around seven main centres. Here we present each area's strengths and different times of year for buyers to visit to experience the best Asian art auctions and fairs.

Chiswick Auctions’ hiring spree has continued with 12 new starters joining this summer, taking the firm to a headcount of 80.

Ahead of a threatened import tax, overseas consignments of Chinese art were among the best sellers in the September Asian art sales in New York.

This pair of Qing vases caught the eye of Hertfordshire auctioneer Richard Kluk when valuing jewellery at a London home.

Bonhams’ September 25 Exploration and Travel sale in New York opens with the 80-lot Joe Fitzsimmons library devoted to works on Antarctic Exploration.

Two Worcester ‘Limoges’ chalices were the star lots at Stourbridge auction house Fieldings (21% buyer’s premium).

A painting by the Victorian Neo-classicist painter John Godward (1861-1922) not seen on the market since 1925 is going under the hammer at Bonhams in New Bond Street on September 26.

More than 500 lots of pictures, sculpture, furniture, textiles, architectural features and artefacts spanning 2000 years from the collection of the late Robert Barley, will come to auction at TW Gaze later this month.

From antiquities to Chinese works of art and 20th century European sculpture, a sale in Maine showcases America’s rich supply of European and Asian art.

Real rarities and record breakers are among items that feature in this first of a couple of reviews of more literary lots from the wealth of summer sales. Here the focus is principally on works of the last 200 years or so – and includes such diverse characters as Hugh the Heron and the Invisible Man.

One of the earliest pieces of ancient art in the US, an ancient Assyrian relief that arrived in Virginia before the American Civil War, is being offered at auction.

A book of specimen banknotes printed for locations across the world has set a house record for Tring Market Auctions (17.5% buyer’s premium) by selling for £205,000.

Accounts of wars and skirmishes in the southern states of North America and Mexico were one notable feature of an August 23 sale held in San Francisco.

It was of early manufacture, looked beautiful and the condition was very good – but auctioneer Ben Rogers Jones admits to still being mystified as to why a paperweight sold for such a hefty price at his Cardiff saleroom.

With buying opportunities proliferating across the US this autumn, ATG picks out a selection of highlights appearing at auctions from Boston to California.