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Rare as Forres silver is, three pieces by the Highland town’s smiths John and Patrick Riach were on offer at Edinburgh auction house Thomson Roddick (17.5% buyer’s premium) on October 11 – the fiddle pattern dessert spoon, below, and two characteristic Scottish toddy labels.

The jacket of the 1904 first of Jack London’s The Sea-Wolf shown right is quite obviously in a sorry state – falling apart and with sizeable sections missing all round. It is, however, a jacket previously known only by rumour or talk of ‘one other copy thought to exist’.

Catalogued as a ‘travelling ensemble’ these two oak fitted cases of silver tableware, below, conjure up images of lavish inter-war era picnics.

Since Jamaica declared independence in 1962, art on the Caribbean island has swung between two major styles: ‘mainstream’ and ‘intuitive’.

A portrait of Thomas Cobley Gent of Buttsford, Colebrooke (d.1844), is believed to portray ‘Old Uncle Tom Cobley’, from the tradition song Widecombe Fair, as a young boy.

Born partly out of necessity and partly out of a reaction to austerity, British design in the immediate post-war era underwent a flowering of innovation with new styles, new materials and a fresh impetus that resulted in a very different class of furniture.

Following the wake of the influential 1862 International Exhibition in London (when Japanese art first reached a wide British audience), this tea service below would have been the height of fashion when it was made by Richard Martin and Ebenezer Hall in 1879.

It is the quirky designs of husband-and-wife team François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne that populate the top echelons of so much French design in the salerooms these days.

This pair of Commonwealth silver plates, London 1645, bear the contemporaneous arms of the Puritan Bulstrode Whitelocke (1605-75).

This fine pair of Victorian silver six-branch candelabra sold to a United Arab Emirates bidder on thesaleroom.com for £13,000 at John Nicholson’s (24% buyer’s premium) in Haslemere, Surrey, on October 15.

This classical Guild of Handicrafts bowl, below, underlined the popularity of Arts & Crafts silver when offered by Essex auction house Stacey’s (20% buyer’s premium).

This limited-edition bronze, below, by Italian artist Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) made £24,000 at West Sussex saleroom Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium).

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from November 27-December 7, 2018.

Admirers of American neoclassical decorative arts have been treated to a wealth of exhibitions in recent years, and now even more is available to discover and acquire.

MADAM – On the recommendation of a friend I watched a few of the new Make Me a Dealer programmes presented by Paul Martin (ATGs passim).

C&T Auctioneers of Kent is launching antiques and collectors sales, with its first taking place on April 3 next year.

Artist often overshadowed by husband William now comes into her own at auction.

A deluxe issue of 'Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens' signed by celebrated illustrator Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) is one of the attractions at The North Wall Arts Centre’s exhibition 'Once Upon a Time'.

Despite its size and various eras of occupation, Malta sustained a vibrant silver and gold-working tradition across several centuries.