Auctions

For a relatively brief period during the 19th century, small silver boxes decorated with British landmarks found an eager following among the honeymooners and day-trippers of Georgian and Victorian England.

An Old Master portrait of an elderly Stuart woman took £13,200 at Mander Auctioneers (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Suffolk on November 18.

Two big names dominated the 20th Century Decorative Arts sale held by Gildings (15% buyer’s premium) in Market Harborough on November 7.

An exceptionally rare, complete copy in a 17th century binding of Hernán Cortés’ Praeclara Nova maris Oceanii Hyspania… of 1524 sold for a six-times estimate €240,000 (£212,390) at Hartung & Hartung (20% buyer’s premium) in its November 6-7 auction.

British bee books formed an unusual feature of a November 8 sale held by Dominic Winter (19.5% buyer’s premium).

Topping a recent sale at Boulton & Cooper in Malton, near York was this unusual Georgian miniature elbow chair with shell-carved knees and cresting rail.

George Orwell is the focus of a first look at a November 7 Sotheby’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale of books from The Library of an English Bibliophile, the seventh in that series to have been held since 2010. Orwell’s books made a significant contribution to the overall total.

Plaudits were deserved in Paris on November 27 for Camille Claudel (1864-1943) when Artcurial’s (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) dedicated sale of 20 of the sculptor’s works were offered direct from her family.

Sometimes described as the wireless which saved Ekco, the radical Bakelite circular Model AD65 radio designed by Wells Coates in the 1933 sold in its tens of thousands. It restored the fortunes of the Essex factory after a disastrous fire in 1932.

A red and black chalk portrait of a Renaissance French prince soared to a multi-estimate price of €810,000 (£736,365) when it went under the hammer in Monaco last month.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships

If, as generally accepted, the tri-annual fine art sales at Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) can be regarded as something of a barometer of the middle market, the outlook following the autumn sale on November 18 appears rather more steady than the Brexit nervousness talked about elsewhere in the economy.

Founded three years ago, the Whitchurch, Shropshire, firm of Trevanion & Dean (19% buyer’s premium) enjoyed its best sale so far when the 950 lots, ranging from Renaissance art to contemporary glass, totalled £250,000 on November 18.

The sluggish area of Victorian genre painting provided Brightwells (20% buyer’s premium) with one of its top-sellers at the November 8-9 sale in Leominster.

Paintings and an unusual form of 17th century entertainment are potential highlights at three Madrid suctions.