Auctions

Auction house Bonhams has raised its buyer’s premium levels, adding a new threshold of 27.5% on the first £2500/$3000 of the hammer price.

Two previously unpublished ink sketches by John Constable (1776 -1837) excelled at Chiswick Auctions’ latest British & European Fine Art sale.

Although catalogued as 18th century, this marquetry table cabinet – sold for a multi-estimate sum in Ireland last week – is more probably late 16th or early 17th century.

A lack of sufficient stellar consignments at the latest Contemporary art sales in London meant the overall total was down on last year.

Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia has acquired a Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-97) portrait of an Irish veteran of the French and Indian War. The foundation bought it at Sotheby’s Old Master day sale in London in December when it sold for £40,000 plus premium.

A Cardiff estate has provided a highly useful consignment to Welsh saleroom Rogers Jones (18% buyer’s premium inc VAT) with around 45 modern British paintings in all.

A selection of five pieces of Clarice Cliff offered at different price levels at Woolley & Wallis on March 20 .

Two early panel paintings, one German, the other Cretan, emerged from a Florida collection to sell for six-figure prices at the Premier Auction at Brunk (20% buyer’s premium) in Asheville, North Carolina, on January 28. Both were new discoveries by rare artists.

Silver across five centuries caught the eye at provincial sales in February.

The concertina-cut novelty pictured here is one in which a painted roundel of a cottage pulls up to reveal a large mouse.

An impressive collection of 20th century British pictures will be offered at Cheffins in Cambridge on March 21 after Hertfordshire County Council took the decision to offload them.