Print Edition

An unusual medals sale has led to an unusual outcome. An application is to be made to export from Canada the Victoria Cross group won by heroic Lieutenant Colonel David Currie after it was bought by a British private collector.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period September 28-October 4, 2017. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

A round-up of art and antiques news from the previous seven days.

A collection of early 20th century Chinese silver attracted wide interest at Catherine Southon’s (18% buyer’s premium) September 6 sale at Selsdon, south London.

Ed Lake works at Jarndyce Antiquarian Booksellers, specialist in 18th and 19th century English literature and history. His parents opened the business in 1969 and it is based in Great Russell Street, across from the British Museum. The shop’s ground floor has been renovated to recreate a 19th-century bookshop.

Leading UK artists have donated works for an auction raising funds to establish a national centre for the artist Thomas Gainsborough.

“My lord, because I know that you will take pleasure in the great victory which our Lord has granted me on this voyage, I write you this letter, by which you will learn how… I crossed to the Indies, where I found many islands populated with innumerable inhabitants; and I have taken possession of all of them…”

This original case of five silver catheters and three urethral sounds marked for the London maker J Millikan might be a strange offering as a prize outside medical circles.

Early on at the recent LAPADA Art & Antiques Fair (15-20 September), Charles Wallrock of Wick Antiques met a new client.

TEFAF’s move onto the New York scene, with a spring and autumn fair in the heart of Manhattan, swings into its next stage with the second edition of TEFAF New York Fall from October 28-November 1.

MADAM – I feel that I must take issue with Robin Butler over his attempt to blame the EU for the lamentable fiasco that was this year’s Lille Braderie (‘Blame the EU for Braderie’, Letters, ATG No 2310).

Cheap sterling can help bring in the foreign buyers – but only if auctioneers can deliver the right goods. These were much in evidence at Chorley’s (20% buyer’s premium) sale at Prinknash Abbey on September 13-14.

Irish dealer organises events in Dublin with another coming up next month...

The president of NAVA Propertymark has promised to increase the membership of the auctioneer and valuer association during his tenure and reiterated his quest to get more auctioneers registered.

A pair of watercolours depicting Berwick-upon-Tweed, the northern-most town in England, turned up at Batemans (20% buyer’s premium) on September 2.

A nude painting by the 19th century English artist William Etty (1787-1849) starred in Sworders’ (22% buyer’s premium) sale in Essex. The 2ft 2in x 19in (66 x 49cm) oil on panel shows a naked woman in a wooded landscape, her head and body turned away from the viewer.

At the Ink Fair London on October 25-27, Susanne Sculz-Falster Rare Books offers this collection of 241 butterfly and moth prints housed in a 22-drawer collector’s cabinet, right, for £7500.

“If you lived here you could make it absolutely divine,” wrote author Virginia Woolf to her sister Vanessa Bell in 1916.

A portrait of air vice-marshal James Edgar ‘Johnnie’ Johnson has been donated to the RAF Club in London after being sold by dealer MacConnal-Mason.

A record-breaking Song dynasty bowl at Sotheby’s. A working ceramics factory at Tate Modern. A new book on Wedgwood. Porcelain and ceramics are much in the news at the moment.