Auctions

Shortly after the catalogue for Bellmans’ recent sale in Wisborough Green, Sussex had gone to press, a printed paper label was noticed to the underside of this burr-veneered occasional table. It read 'L Pearson, Cabinet Maker & Upholsterer, 3 Elizabeth Street, Hobart Town'.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period September 7-13, 2017. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

Christie’s seven sales dominated the New York Asian art series. With a couple of sales still to go across the weekend, the firm’s running total was close to $35m, more than twice the aggregate of its competitors.

The group of regional auctioneers known as The Association of Accredited Auctioneers (AAA) has relaunched as an organisation to promote business and pool resources in the face of “a post-Brexit world and a rapidly changing market”.

Best of 193 lots of film posters which made up a specialist sale at Burstow Hewett (15% buyer’s premium) at Battle was this variation for the classic movie The Maltese Falcon.

In recent years Dominic Winter (19.5% buyer’s premium) has enjoyed considerable success with cookery manuscripts and the most recent auction further enhanced the saleroom’s recipe for culinary success.

The field encompassed by ‘Design’ sales is being diligently tilled by many UK auctioneers aware of the potential of a market appealing to younger buyers wary of traditional antiques.

Enhancing a growing reputation at Edinburgh auction house Thomson Roddick (17.5% buyer’s premium) for optical instruments, a recent sale included 18 lots of binoculars and the like.

About a month ago, collector Robert Mulraine launched a website dedicated to the artist Thomas Baker of Leamington (1808-1869). A great enthusiast of the Victorian landscape painter, he has been working with the curatorial team of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery to create an online ‘Memoranda of Pictures’ based on the artist’s five diaries in the museum’s collection.

This bronze maquette by Henry Moore (1898-1986) will feature in a two-session, 850-lot sale to be held by Nye and Company in Bloomfield NJ on September 27-28.

Details on the back of a pastel drawing lead to detective work and royal portraitist connection...

The personal seals used by the Qianlong Emperor, a known connoisseur and patron of the arts, are among the most highly prized Chinese artefacts in today’s market.

Cottone Auctions is selling the collection of Annette McGuire Cravens, a philanthropist and widely travelled arts patron from Buffalo, New York State.

Bid to £45,000 at Sotheby’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) was an extensively revised and corrected autograph draft of what was to become Charles Dickens’ tale of ‘Mrs Gamp with the Strolling Players’.

Two aspects of soldiering – a touch of glamour and life at the deadly sharp end – were illustrated in two lots at a Tennants (18.5% buyer’s premium) antiques and militaria sale at Leyburn.

Catalogued as early English, this slipware dish above had all the qualities of the combed decoration earthenware baking, or loaf, dishes produced in the late 18th to early 19th century and took the top price at Mitchells (20% buyers premium) of Cockermouth.

Found by a dog walker in a roadside skip, this remarkably intact Victorian majolica teapot found the ideal bidder at Brighton General Auctions (15% buyer’s premium).

While plenty of general auctions around the country feature a range of 19th century and early 20th century paintings, Bonhams is staging its next dedicated sale in this category on September 27.