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Around £20,000 worth of items have been stolen from National Trust property Montacute House in Somerset.

Hundreds of lots were withdrawn at Lay’s Charlestown Shipwreck Museum sale after a last-minute offer from the Maritime Archaeology Sea Trust (MAST) secured 500 of them.

This remarkable Charles II period silver clock-watch with alarm appeared for sale at Wotton Auction Rooms in Gloucestershire this month.

Recently rediscovered in a German family collection where they have been for at least a century, a pair of Ming dynasty wucai ‘fish’ jars and covers sold at Sotheby’s for a hammer price of £8.3m.

Organiser IACF is taking over the antiques and collectors’ fairs held for 25 years by the family owned Aztec Events at the Norfolk Showground, a rural location 10 miles west of Norwich.

The second instalment of Meissen porcelain from the collection of German businessman Hadrian Maria Oskar Merkle (1942-2018) was sold at a recent sale at Bonhams Cornette de Saint Cyr of Paris.

A rare enamel advertising sign in almost perfect condition was the biggest eye-catcher at the recent dedicated sale held by specialist Pari (20% buyer’s premium) in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg.

This late Tudor or early Stuart purse or sweet bag with a connection to Mary, Queen of Scots sold for £30,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) at a recent sale at Hutchinson Scott.

A round-up of art and antiques news from the previous seven days, including news of the inaugural sales series at Bonhams new Hong Kong premises

Ivan Macquisten reviews the trade association’s first five decades

A single-owner collection of rare 17th to 19th century pocket watches in Australia achieved a white-glove result with 95% of the sale going to international buyers

An early pocket watch by Abraham Louis Breguet with the low serial number 104 was one of the highlights of a recent watch sale at Cortrie (21% buyer’s premium) in Hamburg.

A medallion of mould used in Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin’s antibacterial properties achieved an auction record price of $76,000 (£58,500) including buyer’s premium at Bonhams’ History of Science and Technology sale in New York.

Belgian city’s council was successful with pre-sale deal to buy queen’s plea on behalf of political prisoners