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A fine pair of Victorian figural table salts in the form of sea maidens on the back of dolphins sold for £4900 (estimate £1500-2000) at Wootton Auction Rooms in Gloucestershire on October 17. Weighing 33oz, they carry marks for John Wilmin Figg, London 1841.

The last remnants of Mallett’s stock, including a clutch of 18th century pictures, were offered in a final sale in Berkshire on November 8.

A mix of surprising and more predictable results emerged in the first round of Old Master auctions in Germany and Austria this autumn.

An internal review into the export licence system for works of art is under way, writes Roland Arkell.

A Sino-Tibetan gilt-bronze of a serene Amitayus confounded modest expectations to sell for $690,000 (£518,000) at the Neal Auction Gallery in New Orleans.

Entered into the October 21 sale at Bishop & Miller (18% buyer’s premium) by a Suffolk vendor thinning out his collection, these carved boxwood nutcrackers, right, made an immediate impact on bidders at the Stowmarket rooms.

Maidenhead auction house Dawson’s is dipping a toe into the world of design with a dedicated sale on December 2.

Elizabeth Bowman, née Palmer, who established Bowman Antiques Fairs in 1973, passed away peacefully on Monday November 13 in Leeds General Infirmary.

The Canterbury Auction Galleries included this George IV silver vinaigrette by John Lawrence & Co, Birmingham, decorated with a view of St Peter’s Church, Brighton. It sold to an Australian internet bidder for £2300.

It is possible to have too much of a good thing in a narrow collecting market – a feature amplified when the leading player has left the field.

Sotheby’s posted a record for the artist CRW Nevinson on November 21 when an important Great War scene was knocked down at £1.55m (£1.87m including premium).

The dual appeal of Maltese silver lies in both a sense of national pride and a very limited supply.

Natural history works, together with books, prints, even pictures featuring aspects of hunting, were a key component of a Sotheby’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale of November 2 billed only as The Library of a European Gentleman.

An extraordinary example of British avant-garde clothing made on the eve of the First World War will be offered at auction in Oxford next month.

The sale of a comprehensive collection of Channel Islands silver in Guernsey provides a perfect opportunity to test the market temperature...

A week before Fonsie Mealy’s William Butler Yeats sale, the auctioneers’ neighbours, kith and rivals Mealy’s (20% buyer’s premium) had a couple of eyecatchers in its November 8 sale at Castlecomer.

Wright Marshall (21% buyer’s premium) featured a still-life by John Pawle (1915-2010) in its sale on October 28 in Knutsford, Cheshire.

The artist Stanley Anderson (1884-1966) was a perennial sceptic of 20th century ‘progress’. An engraver, etcher and watercolour painter, he started working in line engraving in the 1920s when it was an outmoded and almost extinct form of graphic output.

Among the many hundreds of services manufactured in Meissen, the Schwanenservice (Swan Service) is one of the most exclusive – a fact not lost on today’s collectors of 18th century German porcelain.

Born in Vienna in 1932, Peter was forced to flee from Hitler’s invading Anschluss of Austria. He spent most of the war years in hiding in France, eventually escaping to Switzerland with the help of the French Resistance.