Auctions

Sale of more than 300 works amassed by former journalist for The Times attracts a wide range of interest

The latest sale of Cornish Art, Fine Art & Studio Pottery at Lay’s (21% buyer’s premium) in Penzance featured 85 lots from the personal art collection of Michael Hunt.

A group of seven works that were once part of the collection of noted connoisseur and scholar Kerrison Preston (1884-1974) came to a recent auction held by Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) in Dorset.

Inaugural Forum standalone auction achieves impressive results in south London

Among the most desirable of the Chinese export porcelain patterns made for the Dutch market is the so-called ‘skating lesson’ design.

A Mouseman single wardrobe with panelled adzed decoration sold for £7400 against a guide of £4000-6000 at Summersgills (18% buyer’s premium) in Easingwold, North Yorkshire.

A decade ago V&A curators used an X-ray to discover what was inside a vintage Christmas cracker made in the 1920s by the Tom Smith company without having to actually pull it. This revealed a small chocolate.

Contrasting contraptions both sell for strong five-figure sums in salerooms north and south

The golden age of topaz was the 18th and early 19th century.

Prices for the 19th century Polish genre painter Simeon (Szymon) Buchbinder moved to a new level at a sale at Blank (22% buyer’s premium) in Bad Vilbel, near Frankfurt.

Our selection of lots from eight upcoming auctions

It has been estimated there are between 500 and 1000 different types of marble-in-neck mineral water bottles based on the famous 1872 patent by Hiram Codd.

Although he produced numerous bronze figures for public monuments and decorative elements for religious building, the German sculptor Ewald Mataré (1887-1965) is best known for his numerous figures of cows in a multitude of styles from realistic to cubistic.

It has been some years since a good piece of Vizagapatam furniture turned up at a German auction, so it was quite an event when Bieberle (21.42% buyer’s premium) in Magdeburg offered a writing cabinet.

Stand-out lots from seven upcoming sales

While two early Märklin carousels went round and round, the bids at Hohenstaufen (24.5% buyer’s premium) in Göppingen went up and up.

A group of three works by LS Lowry (1887-1976) consigned from two separate sources appeared in a recent sale at Dawsons (27.5% buyer’s premium) in Maidenhead, Berkshire.

The Wurlitzer Company was founded in the US in 1856 and the Centennial 2000 jukebox model was created to commemorate the centenary anniversary.

Stehende Frau (Standing Woman) by Georg Kolbe soared to a new record at Grisebach (32% buyer’s premium) in Berlin.