Auctioneers

A GROUP of American artists have filed class action lawsuits against Christie’s and Sotheby’s complaining they have violated the 1976 California Resale Royalty Act.

IT could have been one of the sleepers of the century had it not been recognised and swiftly withdrawn from a Bonhams Oxford auction.

THE final lot of 233 offered at Michael Bowman's latest sale at the Chudleigh Town Hall, Devon was this limewood carving of a goose wing attributed to the Anglo-German artist Sir Hubert von Herkomer (1849-1914).

Prints by Edward Wadsworth (1889-1949) are not a common sight on the market, but the Yorkshire-born artist who became a leading exponent of Vorticism was a prominent printmaker in the early stage of his career.

ADAM Partridge auctioneers and valuers are to move their Congleton operation to new premises in Macclesfield.

POLICE are appealing for help after 27 Chinese works of art were stolen from Stroud Auction Rooms in Gloucestershire a day before they were due to be sold.

A KENT auction house has withdrawn a sacred Aboriginal artefact from sale after intervention from cultural experts and the Australian High Commission.

A SILVER medal awarded to the Master of Admiral Lord Nelson's flagship HMS Victory, who was at the ship's helm throughout the Battle of Trafalgar is to be sold by Nantwich, Cheshire, auctioneers Peter Wilson.

A GOLD button which links the two most significant military figures in the foundation of the United States of America – George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette – will be sold in Leicestershire on November 1.

MADE in 17th century Gdansk or Königsberg at the very height of the amber working trade in Europe, this delicate chalice with silver-gilt mounts shot to £210,000 at Lawrences latest sale in Crewkerne, Somerset.

THE history of France’s famous Sleeper Car Company was commemorated in a single-owner sale at Christie’s in Paris last month.

COLLECTABLES specialists Stanley Gibbons have opened a new office in Hong Kong in a bid to stake a claim in the Asian market for coins, military medals, stamps and historical documents.

IN what promises to be the biggest test of the overall health of the Victorian picture market for some years, Lyon & Turnbull will sell the entire contents of Old Battersea House, the London home of the Forbes family, in Edinburgh on November 1.

THE existence of the elephant – “nature’s great masterpiece... the only harmless great thing”, to use John Donne’s famous description – was well known to medieval Europeans, but captive pachyderms had disappeared from the continent shortly after the demise of the Roman Empire.

As ever, there was a large amount of Doulton Lambeth on offer at Bonhams’ latest Ceramics Design sale.

Modern British art played its part in the recent London print sales when ‘The Merry-Go-Round’ by Cyril Power (1872-1951) drew strong bidding at Sotheby’s on September 27 and ‘Adonis in Y fronts’, a 1963 screenprint by Richard Hamilton (1922-2011), led the day at Christie’s South Kensington on September 20.

THE famous caricature birds crown the top of the tree for Martinware collectors. This is still a strong market where, feels Bonhams’ specialist Mark Oliver, a really top-calibre model could command £40,000 if it came on the market.

Becoming the most expensive painting ever sold in Ireland, A Fair Day, Mayo by Jack Butler Yeats (1871-1957) was knocked down at €1m (£917,430) at Adam's lastest sale in Dublin.

THE thwack of the polo mallet was replaced by the repeated thud of the gavel earlier this month at the Cowdray estate in West Sussex, celebrated as one of the great British polo venues and the seat of the Viscount Cowdray.

The major houses’ latest New York Asian series highlighted the dominance of the Chinese art market.