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Having sold the first tranche of a single-owner collection of 18th century Derby porcelain in their May 2003 fine sale, Wintertons Fine Arts will be hoping for similar success when part two is offered in their March 17 sale in Lichfield.

THE Staffordshire potters never missed a commercial trick. Despite the political differences that may have existed between the USA and Britain following the War of 1812, large quantities of transfer-printed wares were made specifically for the American export market during the first half of the 19th century.

PORTRAIT MINIATURES: At just under £92,000 for 287 lots, Bonhams Bond Street’s (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) first portrait miniature sale of the year on February 3 was essentially a middle-ranking offering.

What Bonhams are billing as “one of the world’s greatest portrait miniature collections” will go on sale in their Bond Street rooms on April 22. The 175 English and Continental miniatures, which have been on loan to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery for the past three years, date from the 16th to the 19th century and are estimated to fetch in excess of £1m.

A MASKED gang took a substantial quantity of antique jewellery during a robbery at the Petersfield Antiques Fair held at the Festival Hall in the town from February 6-8.

THIS year is the centenary of the foundation of the Georg Jensen silversmith workshop in Copenhagen, and to mark the anniversary the international Jensen specialists The Silver Fund hold an exhibition devoted to the work of one of the most renowned designers of the Jensen firm, Henning Koppel (1918-1981).

Belgian rooms content but no more with 2003 performance: 2003 was a “slightly up-and-down year” for Horta of Brussels, according to firm director Jean-Pierre Julien, but he was satisfied with a four per cent increase in sales from 2002, making it Horta’s most lucrative year since they were founded in 1982.

Cheffins of Cambridge are celebrating what must rank as one of the most dramatic – and certainly one of the highest – prices ever recorded in the UK provinces after their February 11-12 sale that included a pair of white marble seated figures by Sir Henry Cheere (1703-81).

Total turnover at UK picture and sculpture sales in 2003 was down 10 per cent on the previous year, according to figures just published by Art Sales Index. This reflects the similar contraction in the international market during the 2002-2003 season announced by ASI in the autumn.

THE new money laundering regulations come into force next month, creating new legal requirements for auctioneers and dealers who wish to accept large cash payments from their clients.

Wrotham Park, Hertfordshire, situated just 14 miles from Central London, has been the home of the Byng family for over 250 years but it is best known to a wider public for the starring role it played as the face of Gosford Park, the stately home in the eponymous Robert Altman film that brilliantly analyses the life of a country house above and below stairs.

ISLAMIC ART: A MAJOR donation hase been given to the Victoria and Albert Museum, to enable it to completely refurbish its Islamic Gallery, home to the famous Ardabil carpet and many other treasures from the Middle East.

FAR from the traditional image of the stuffy bookseller, Mayfair-based Biblion, who deal in antiquarian books and first editions out of Davies Mews, W1, are celebrating St. Valentine’s Day with what can best be described as a sonnet-o-gram.

Dead animals are usually regarded as a major commercial no-no in a painting, as is excessive size. It was therefore hardly a surprise that a recently restored and relined 5ft 10in by 8ft (1.78 x 2.44m) Richard Ansdell (1815-1885) canvas featuring a dead wolf and a dying dog did not exactly inspire a blizzard of bids when it came under the hammer at Maxwells of Wilmslow on January 23.

CIGARETTE CARDS AND POSTCARDS: The cigarette and postcard auction is one of those corners of the collectables market where sales are keenly awaited by a specialist clientele and where very little tends to get left without a buyer.

An unprecedented crowd of over 500 people turned up to watch, if not bid, at Sotheby’s near sell-out Part I auction of contemporary art on February 5. A stream of telephone bids created numerous eye-catching results, including new auction highs for Nicolas de Staël (£1.15m), Richard Hamilton (£100,000), R.B. Kitaj (£220,000), Paul Pfeiffer (£40,000) and last year’s Turner Prizewinner Grayson Perry (b.1960).

Although it might have been small beer by the standards of the New York Old Master sales reported last week, the presence of a £13,000 Italian still-life painting gave a welcome financial boost to Brightwells’ (15% buyer’s premium) inaugural auction at their new purpose-built Easters Court saleroom on the eastern outskirts of Leominster on January 15.

Furniture designed by Charlotte Perriand (1903–99) and produced by Steph Simon éditeur, raised some stiff start-of-year prices in the Piasa (17.94/11.96% buyer’s premium) saleroom on January 28.

Portsmouth are just hanging on in the Premiership at present, but they too have had their glory days, and in a December 10 sale held by Nesbits of neighbouring Southsea, this programme (right) for the last pre-war FA Cup Final of 1939, in which they beat Wolves 4-1, was sold for £400 (a ticket for that game made £135) and another for the 1934 final, in which they had been beaten 2-1 by Manchester City, was bid to £450.

Scottish, Greek and Australian subjects gave a welcome international feel to the main highlights among the pictures offered on the third day of Gorringes’ (15% buyer’s premium) January 27-29 sale in Lewes.