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Australia gains three new auction houses as specialists go it alone in Melbourne

The government’s imminent ivory law change has forced an international collectors’ conference to pull out of London and move overseas.

Unmistakably the work of the Viennese avant-garde, this gem-set silver plated table clock sold for €205,000 (£186,000) at a recent sale held by the Rotterdam auctioneer Vendu Notarishuis.

The antiquarian book trade is lobbying for changes to the proposed EU law designed to crack down on imports of cultural goods ‘more than 250 years old’.

A rare medieval gold head of a saint generated significant interest at a sale in Paris conducted by Pierre Bergé & Associés at the Hôtel Drouot.

An Edwardian Carlton House satinwood desk of the type which was once a best-seller at auction, but an early casualty of the furniture slump, was back in favour at the Hartleys (17.5% buyer’s premium) summer sale in Ilkley.

From the same source which provided Sotheby’s success with a fine collection of Scottish Colourist works (ATG No 2347), a large late 19th version of the Medici Vase led the two-day Glasgow sale at Great Western Auctions (23% buyer’s premium).

Running to just over a hundred pages and containing numerous illustrations of ships, figureheads and portrait busts, an accounts ledger kept by a Cumbrian shipbuilder has gone to a local museum.

The Paris high season is a time when classic sales of traditional fare are as much to the fore as buoyant sectors such as Asian, contemporary and modern and tribal art.

The latest batch of period portraits to pass through Cheffins featured several from a late-16th century property in Great Chesterford, Essex. Passed by descent, the quartet was led by an attractive English School portrait of Queen Mary I (1516-58), an oil painted on an oval 2ft x 21in (62 x 53cm) canvas.

Newly formed Australian firm Abacus Auctions holds its second sale on July 22, devoted to coins and banknotes plus a selection of collectables and sporting memorabilia.

The Meissen model of Count Bruhl’s Tailor was a major attraction at Hampshire auction house Jacobs & Hunt (26% buyer’s premium).

British watercolours depicting the beautiful county of Devon and painted during the medium’s golden age drew eager bidding at Cheffins of Cambridge (22.5% buyer’s premium).

A portrait of Miss Virginia Gammell, an Edwardian society lady, is among the highlights at Mark Murray’s summer exhibition taking place in New York.

To celebrate 30 years in the business, Jonathan Cooper Gallery of Chelsea hosts a group exhibition of figurative painting, drawing and sculpture by contemporary artists.