Auctions

In our weekend series, Antiques Trade Gazette brings you a selection of quotes from dealers, auctioneers, collectors and others. This week we cover celebrity collections, brown is the new black and the future of Bonhams.

Christie’s are offering what they claim is the most important work by Edward Hopper (1882-1967) remaining in private hands. ‘Chop Suey’ from 1929 will be estimated in the region of $70m when it appears at auction later this year.

More than 300 objects from the personal collection of the late actor Robin Williams (1951-2014) and his wife Marsha will be offered at auction in New York.

The sale of three Blue John and ormolu-mounted urns could mark a purple patch for a family-run north London auction house this month.

The collection of antiques and artworks seized by the police from a bankrupt drug dealer is being offered at John Pye Auctions.

Portrait silhouettes were all the rage in fashionable English society of the Georgian period but suffered a rapid decline in popularity in Victorian times as photography began to dominate.

In the race to offer increasingly collectable more modern toys such as Lego and Star Wars, a lot dating from 1896 sold at a Teesside auction shows older items are still in the running when rarity and condition are just right.

Auction house Bonhams has been acquired by the private equity group Epiris.

The collection of photography pioneer and medical writer Alfred Swaine Taylor (1806-80) is to be offered at auction house Lacy Scott & Knight in Bury St Edmunds in October following the success of a first sale last year.

The art and antiques collection of the late Tory MP who helped to bring Margaret Thatcher to power is coming to auction in Dorchester.

An extraordinarily rare artwork by pre-eminent Chinese scholar Su Shi (1037-1101) will be offered at Christie’s Hong Kong later this year. The auctioneers are hoping that it could make a record for any Asian work of art.