Auctions

Works offered in Essex saleroom belonged to ‘capable, colourful and forceful’ professor

If social media makes you feel like Big Brother is watching you, and if truth occasionally feels stranger than fiction, then like many bibliophiles you might be exploring books that suggest models for society and the role of the individual.

The six lots described here are drawn from a hugely successful sale of comics and comic art held in Dallas by Heritage (20% buyer’s premium) over four days, from April 7-10.

Typically, the work of studio potter Joanna Constantinidis (1927-2000), for nearly 40 years a lecturer in ceramics at Chelmsford Technical College and School of Art, has tended to occupy the second tier of the burgeoning contemporary ceramics market.

Specialist toy sales held in April on either side of the Atlantic have yielded some notable prices for items from two specific categories: toys relating to Popeye and a collection of toy boats.

A selection of 15 upcoming lots from auctions taking place around the UK and Ireland.

A soapstone seal used by the emperor Qianlong to express his approval of paintings and calligraphy in the imperial collection sold at auction in Hong Kong for HK$131m (£13m) on April 29.

Among the most extraordinary of all navigational charts are the lattice ‘stick maps’ used by Marshall Islanders.

Setting a record price for the Newlyn artist Ernest Procter (1886-1935), a previously lost First World War scene generated strong competition at Lyon & Turnbull’s latest Modern Made auction.

ATG’s pick of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com, featuring both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

Even though the head of the Christ Child was missing, numerous bidders joined in the action when a carved figure of the Madonna with Child came up for sale in Düsseldorf.

The countless designs for furniture and decorative arts created by Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine, who were known as Napoleon’s architects, not only found favour with the French emperor but also had an enduring influence on cabinetmakers throughout Europe.

When the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated on April 15, 1945, a party of British Red Cross nurses and doctors stayed and tended those they could help back to health.

A small group of Riccardi Press limited editions, each title produced in runs of 500 copies for the Medici Society, were offered in an April 7 sale held by Thomson Roddick (18% buyer’s premium) of Carlisle.

The Romanian artist Victor Brauner is known above all for his disturbing Surrealist paintings, often incorporating violent scenes.

Letter to adviser in 1592 underlines her frustration at the French king’s policies