Auctioneers

FROM May 1913, the first distinctive Commonwealth of Australia banknotes were issued. They were controversial in that no portrait of the reigning monarch, George V, was included in the design.

METASTASIS, to most people, is a word with rather grim connotations – referring as it does to the spread of cancer. Applied to a set of playing cards, however, it has an altogether different and more attractive meaning.

LEADING UK fine art auctioneers Dreweatts have established a separate company governed by independent directors to handle clients’ money.

THE first Conspicuous Gallantry Cross group to appear at auction also became the highest-priced lot to sell via ATG's live bidding platform the-saleroom.com when it was hammered down for £88,000 at Dix Noonan Webb on September 18.

IT’S all change among Australia’s leading auctioneers as Goodmans, linked to Bonhams since 2003, are to adopt the Sotheby’s brand instead.

BORN a wealthy European aristocrat and court painter to a Turkish Sultan, the Maltese count Vittorio Amadeo Preziosi (1816-1882) was nevertheless a familiar figure among the back streets of Istanbul.

THIS diminutive table seen at Cambridge auctioneers Cheffins on the second day of their September 23-24 sale was a miniature version of the famous circular expanding dining table designed by Robert Jupe of Welbeck Street, London.

A DETAILED examination of Laura Knight's 1915 oil Carnaval by Christie's specialist Tom Rooth revealed the edge of not one but two stretched canvases.

THE new auction season kicked off in earnest in New York with one of the strongest market sectors – Asian works of art.

BONHAMS have set up a new department devoted to sales of photography joining Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Bloomsbury Auctions in mounting specialist stand-alone sales in London in this field.

WHEN a large house in Cheshire was decommissioned by the army after World War Two, it was sold to a family along with its contents. Included in the sale price was this watercolour, pen and ink image of King Olaf by the Danish illustrator Kay Rasmus Nielsen (1886-1957) which was thought at the time to be a print.

THE first tangible evidence of the new Dreweatt-Bloomsbury alliance will be the two-day preview at Bloomsbury's rooms in Maddox Street for Puritan Values, Designers and Makers 1850-1950, the 400-lot auction of the Anthony Geering collection.

Specialist auctioneer Andrew Hilton describes the Bear's Grease Manufacturer as 'the Holy Grail of pot lids'.

Leading regional auctioneers Dreweatts have formed a strategic alliance with London antiquarian book specialists Bloomsbury Auctions.

KNUTSFORD, Cheshire auctioneers Frank Marshall sold this remarkable pair of Chelsea Blue Triangle period sauceboats c.1745-49 for a house record £41,000 on September 8.

BRINGING bidding from different parts of the world to Mallams latest sale in Oxford, this Chinese jade censer went spectacularly over its £2000-3000 estimate on August 26.

According to legend, during the English Civil War, a Royalist descendant of Sir Christopher Harris (c.1553-1625) of Radford, Devon, hid the family silver in a cave before fleeing, fearing for his life.

THIS German clockwork tinplate limousine made a surprise £38,000 at Tennants of Leyburn at their latest toy sale.

IN January next year, Christie’s are planning to open a high-tech storage facility in New York.

THIS rare Meissen figure group modelled by J.J. Kandler, titled The Stormy Lovers sold for £26,000 at Paul Beighton's latest sale.