News topics

A Great Blue Heron as seen by John James Audubon proved the unexpected avian star in a $3m-plus sale featuring mostly natural history prints, maps and atlases held by US saleroom Graham Arader (22% buyer’s premium) on October 28.

Sporting and ornithological art collected over half a century by the Astor family will be offered in a single-owner sale during Christie’s ‘Classic Week’.

We know how it usually goes with most stand-out Victoria Crosses offered at auction: Lord Ashcroft buys them and they go on display at his gallery in the Imperial War Museum in London. But the record for a VC sold at auction, which has recently been set at London saleroom Morton & Eden, actually went to another bidder with very deep pockets – but thankfully for medals enthusiasts, someone else who is looking to put it on public view.

A full saleroom and a sell-out are not necessarily features you associate with traditional fields such as English drinking glasses but there are always exceptions.

An extraordinary family archive of engineering and architectural drawings and designs for the projects of Marc Isambard Brunel (1769-1849), offered in 14 lots, sold for a total of £224,500 in a Bonhams (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale of November 15.

Robilant + Voena’s show, 'Splendour and Magnificence: Art from the European Courts', features 25 Old Master paintings, sculptures and works of decorative art.

Two Qing soapstone seals sold to a Chinese bidder for Dkr1.1m (£130,640), around 100 times their estimate, at Bruun Rasmussen (24 % buyer’s premium) in Copenhagen on November 29.

MADAM – Here is the text of a letter sent to The Rt Hon Lord Maude of Horsham, The House of Lords:

Evocative propaganda posters are being offered by specialist auction house Onslows on December 15 from a conflict that raged between the world wars.

Among the weapons in demand from collectors are Eastern arms and cased pistols, judging by recent auctions. Here we take a look at a few examples – and a specific arms and armour feature will appear in an upcoming issue.

Amid current stories in the media of drastic Royal Navy cutbacks, it is difficult to imagine a sizeable task force of British ships sailing thousands of miles to fight a war. But in 1982 HMS Brilliant (F90) was part of that fleet heading to the South Atlantic to take on, and beat, the Argentinians who had invaded the Falkland Islands.

December is traditionally a month when Paris focuses attention on sales of Asian art, with auctions in the rooms across the city and at the Drouot centre.