Auctions

A rarity at a recent Woolley & Wallis (26% buyer’s premium) ceramics and glass sale was a late 18th century Wedgwood basalt intaglio seal, featuring a profile portrait of the notorious American spy Captain Nathan Hale (1755-76) beside the reversed inscription 'My Country!!!'.

Lyon & Turnbull’s (26% buyer’s premium) sale marking the centenary of the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes - the event that later gave Art Deco its name - included a Lalique glass vase that was shown at the event. Quatre Figurines Femmes Formant Soutien, standing 6½in (17cm) high and modelled as a quartet of crouching female nudes supporting an ovoid bowl, was made using the cire perdue (or lost wax) technique.

The notorious Victorian-era erotic magazine 'The Pearl' (subtitled 'Journal of Facetiae and Voluptuous Reading') was published by William Lazenby in London between July 1879 and December 1880.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish books and works on paper sales

Footballers were among the very first of the Britains hollowcast lead ‘civilian’ figures.

Watercolour can be traced back to nobleman and antiquary who commissioned the illustrator Leonardi

Two auctions held in the region underline demand for the locally produced ceramics

One of the rarest of all of the 31 car mascots made by Lalique from 1925-31 came up for auction at Jeffrey Evans & Associates (25% buyer’s premium) in Mount Crawford, Virginia.

A collection of ceramics by the Hanley-born pottery painter Arthur Holland (1896 1979) comes for sale at Potteries Auctions in Newcastle-under-Lyme on July 12.

The presence of the author’s signature dramatically enhanced the value of a copy of Ian Fleming’s (1908-64) first collection of James Bond short stories 'For Your Eyes Only' offered at an auction at University Archives (25% buyer’s premium).

Chelsea Red Anchor period ‘Hans Sloane’ plates are named with reference to the royal physician, traveller, and natural historian who helped transform the Chelsea Physic Garden into a centre of botanical knowledge during the Enlightenment.

Swann Auction Galleries (25% buyer’s premium) recorded head-turning sales during its series of New York sales in May.

A foundation document of Western sinology appeared at Freeman’s Hindman (28% buyer’s premium) in Chicago.

Among the great Beilby discoveries of recent times was the emergence - from two separate sources across 14 years - of six small firing glasses decorated in red, yellow and white enamel with Masonic emblems.

Ceramics expert’s collection sold at auction included notable pieces made on Merseyside but also a Limehouse cup that proved very popular with bidders

British artist famed for The Monarch of the Glen also painted landscapes for his own pleasure

A biannual addition to Sworders’ calendar is The Glass Sale - the first on October 28.

The great Georgian porcelain decorator and technician William Billingsley (1758-1828) was that recognisable type: artistic genius and downright rogue.