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If the Battle of Britain is your collecting field, then the sale of a Kent collection held in late 2018 would have been a major draw.

A work once said to have “…set the course for the modern world by its effective destruction of the anthropocentric view of the universe” made a rare auction appearance.

'Across the Continent. Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way' is a well-known hand coloured litho print issued by Currier & Ives, although the publisher’s imprint has been cut off the bottom of the example shown below.

MADAM – You continue to receive letters from dealers complaining about buyer’s premiums.

The continued interest in Victorian music boxes in this age of Spotify and streaming was evident when three were among the 1500-lot sale held by Unique Auctions (17.5% buyer’s premium) to launch the new year.

The traditionally ‘dead’ period between Christmas and New Year was enlivened by the December 28 sale at Wotton Auction Rooms (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Gloucestershire – to the extent that more than 20,000 people suffering withdrawal symptoms worldwide viewed it online and 1360 of them registered to bid.

Arctic and Antarctic exploration was the main theme of a library assembled over many years by architect Roger Casson (1943-2016).

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from January 22-February 1, 2019.

BRAFA is a big draw for the visitor in late January but as well as enjoying all that Brussels has to offer in general cultural terms there are other art and antiques-related events on at the same time.

Greenslade Taylor Hunt’s (19.5% buyer’s premium) first sale of the year got off to a bright start with a Singaporean painting sailing to £19,000.

Three modestly valued works sold in regional sales.

Sensual, satirical and grotesque: the works of Beresford Egan (1905-84) certainly fit a description of ‘distinctive’.

MADAM – Various of your correspondents over the last few weeks find that the prospect of paying for a condition report, as well as a buyer’s premium, sticks in their craw.

Historically the first major sale of the year, the January ‘furniture’ auction at Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) turns eyes towards Salisbury for evidence of what the next 12 months will bring.

'Snow on the farmhouses of Les Contamines-Montjoie' has begun to thaw in this oil by Charles-Henri Contencin (1898-1955), part of John Mitchell’s annual 'Peaks and Glaciers' exhibition (January 24-March 8).

Gerald Brockhurst (1890-1978) was already an established etcher when his captivating canvases of society women catapulted him to fame during the interwar years.

Much of the pre-sale interest in the 19th century paintings offered at the major London rooms centred on two landscapes by Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) at Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium).

A letter of 1803 in which George III, writing to Lord Hawkesbury, effectively declares his intention to renew war on France, was at £9000 one of the more successful lots in a recent Cambridge sale that produced its fair share of surprise results.

Dated c.1930, this Lenci figure of a girl in fashionable culottes, below, was estimated at £200-300 at Adam Partridge (20% buyer’s premium) but appears to have been spotted as one of the rarer products of the Turin factory.

Groucho, Harpo and Chico are shown below in Al Hirschfield’s original cover artwork for 'Why a Duck?', a profusely illustrated work about the Marx Brothers edited by Richard J Anobile and published in 1971.