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With more than 16,000 works on display, 'Art Treasures of Great Britain', held in a temporary iron-and-glass structure built in the Old Trafford area of Manchester in 1857, remains the largest art exhibition to be held in the UK.

Silver was the major strength of a recent two-day sale at Dreweatts (25% buyers’ premium). All bar one of the 549 lots got away to a hammer total tipping the £1m mark.

Highlights from Christie’s sales of works from the collection of Hubert de Givenchy, which are to be sold in Paris in June, are currently on a world tour that takes in the US: Palm Beach March 5-26; New York April 8-13 and Los Angeles April 27-29; then Hong Kong May 23-27 before returning to Paris.

An example of 17th century hollowware appeared for sale at Dawsons (23% buyer’s premium) in Maidenhead earlier this year.

Appealing to a range of different types of collectors, particularly aficionados of sewing antiques, Victorian and Edwardian animal pin cushions have their own niche in the novelty silver field.

Estimated at £20,000-30,000, this cast of the Warwick vase by John Samuel Hunt, London 1845, sold for £32,000.

Decisions on act exemptions inevitably run the risk of subjective assessments

Henry William Dee, the son of Soho silversmith Thomas William Dee (c.1792- 1869), made a speciality of producing silver novelties for Garrard, Leuchars & Son and Asprey’s and other retail goldsmiths. There was real genius here and the patterns for many were patented.

For many years the largest city outside London, Norwich had its own silver assay office during three periods from 1565-1702.

Potter & Potter’s Fine Literature & Modern Firsts Sale on April 26 in Chicago includes a copy of Oscar Wilde’s (1854-1900) The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

Many of the lots in an Oxford sale of February 23 formed part of the estate of Canadian linguistic and literary scholar, the late ‘Paddy’ Docker-Drysdale.

Exhibitions event features nine dealers from Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Oxfordshire

Billed as the star lot in a sale that ended on February 27, a scarce copy of the 1937 first issue of Dandy made a high-estimate £3450.

A selection of 13 upcoming lots from auctions taking place around the UK.