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Gustav Detring (1842-1913) and Constantin von Hanneken (1854-1925) were two of the most influential Germans living and working in China in the late 19th century.

Two very different lots helped Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) to boost its first major sale of the year.

This clockwork monoplane manufactured by Märklin in 1914 was one of numerous early 20th century tin toys made by German manufacturers to celebrate the achievements of the early pioneers of flight.

A UK auction record for a copper coin was set on September 24 when a rare Edward VIII 1937 pattern penny sold at Spink for £111,000 (plus 20% buyer’s premium). The coin was made as a trial, ahead of the king’s abdication in December 1936, and was never released for circulation.

Among the ceramics to be included in the Thomaston Place Winter Auction to be held in Maine from February 28-March 1, is this 2½in (6.25cm) high English George III period earthenware mug.

The complete original artworks for two of Edward Ardizzone’s much-loved children’s books were sold for £30,000 apiece at Bonhams (27.5/25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium).

Judith Howard (1945-2019), collector, part-time dealer, museum curator, author, TV expert and lecturer, was a self-confessed ‘maximalist’. Every shelf and wall space in her Wiltshire end-of-terrace was there to be filled. Dusting was a chore reserved for just one day a year.

A good range of 18th and 19th century English ceramics is included in Skinner’s February 14 sale of European furniture and decorative arts in Boston.

This early-20th century snow scene, below, was painted by the French artist Paul Elie Gernez (1888-1948). He was primarily a naturalist painter of still-lives, landscapes and seascapes, and spent much of his life in Honfleur in Normandy.

This silver denarius from 43BC is struck to one side with a youthful male of Quintus Arrius, who was praetor in 72BC and propraetor in 71BC.

A round-up of art and antiques news from the previous seven days, including the theft of an early-19th century mahogany bracket clock from Kensington Church Street dealer Patrick Sandberg.

Spink (20% buyer’s premium) offered the only Victoria Cross group to appear at auction in 2019.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

A key feature of the ceramics section of Dreweatts’ sale on February 19 will be 55 lots from a local private collection featuring 18th century English porcelain.

Eight-strong group by the artist-plantsman provides market pointer for his post-1930s work

Drawings by two later followers of the Pre-Raphaelites drew competition at separate regional salerooms.

Rare 18th century French silver from the golden age of production was a feature of the collection of Renée and Louis Biron offered by Ader (28% buyer’s premium) at Drouot in Paris.

This ‘superb’ rose ryal, produced during the third coinage of James I in 1619-20, sold for £34,000 at Baldwin’s of St James (20% buyer’s premium).

If the story of the sinking of the Bismarck in 1941 is well known, the fate of sister ship the Tirpitz is less familiar.

The opening lot of the Five Centuries sale at Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium) in Edinburgh on February 5 was this previously unrecorded maiolica handled and spouted wet drug jar.