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A round-up of art and antiques news from the previous seven days, including Phillips’ chief executive officer Stephen Brooks leaving the firm after nearly three years at the helm.

Steven Beale, former director of the failed Cotswold art dealership Trinity House Paintings, has not cooperated with the administrators causing “significant time costs” and delays, according to their latest report.

A lampshade painted by Quentin Bell sold for a remarkable £4700 when Adam Partridge (20% buyer’s premium) dispersed the residual collection of Michael Evans in Macclesfield.

An original dust jacket made all the difference when Weiss Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) offered a first edition copy of Agatha Christie’s Dumb Witness in Lynbrook, New York.

A c.1964 publicity photograph signed by all four members of The Beatles sold for £13,000 at Bristol auction house Auctioneum (21% buyer’s premium).

Though largely forgotten today, Lillie Langtry (1853-1929) was probably England’s first superstar, moving effortlessly from the stage to high society.

This extraordinary Tiffany & Co. silver and mixed metal vase has many of the characteristics of the firm’s chief designer and director of its silver works, Edward Chandler Moore (1827-91).

Top lot in the Potter & Potter (25% buyer’s premium) comics sale featured the debut of Captain America – introduced on the cover punching Hitler.

A “true gentleman”, who was “full of cheerfulness, good humour”, and with a “ready smile”, are some of the words used on rip.ie to describe the late George Mealy, who died on December 22.

The Doll & Bears Sale at Vectis (20.83% buyer’s premium) in Stockton-on-Tees included this rare Disney Donald Duck from the 1930s.

The appeal of more modern toys for the latest collectors buying based on nostalgia for childhood playthings was underlined by a large group of Transformers offered at Special Auction Services on January 17.

Pierre Hodé (1889-1942) learned his trade in Paris, a resident of the famous Bateau-Lavoiri building in Montmartre where his close neighbour was Juan Gris.

'Misty Landscape' (1987) is a characteristic work by British artist Liam Hanley (1933-2019) and one of the highlights in his retrospective at Portland Gallery next month.

The toy company of Lines is often mentioned in relation to rocking horses but it was a double bay-fronted dolls’ house produced in c.1895 that impressed at Sheffield saleroom Ellis Willis & Beckett (19.5% buyer’s premium).

As well as being an artist’s model and gallery owner who founded the museum dedicated to the work of the sculptor Aristide Maillol, Dina Vierny was also known as a collector of antique dolls.

Penny in the slot machines known as a ‘Working Model’ came in many guises but, essentially, they all formed a large upright cabinet with a glass window top section.

The earliest records of the silversmithing on the Tyne date from 1249.

Works by Mary Fedden (1915-2012) are a fairly common sight at regional auctions.