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While few will welcome the news that Bonhams – the last of the major auction houses to hold regular sales Japanese works of art in London – is moving its department to Paris (ATG No 2690), there will be opportunities for UK salerooms that continue to plough this selective but occasionally fruitful furrow.

International museum and institutional interest is always a feature of the Salon du Dessin but this year it was even more marked with nearly 500 curators attending.

An Old Trafford supporters’ bench removed during the stadium’s 1992 renovations made 50 times its low estimate at Graham Budd’s latest auction.

Although cautiously catalogued, the Library Collection sale at Adam’s (25% buyer’s premium) in Dublin on April 29 included three pieces of Roman statuary that had been in an Irish private collection since around 1940.

Christened Amanda but always known by her middle name, Jane was an unlikely but highly successful picture specialist at Christie’s South Kensington.

Here we focus on three events this summer of interest to textiles enthusiasts

Can you make a living from selling ephemera and low-value works on paper?

Letters found in family archive include first-hand accounts from St Helena in 1821

At the time that the London-born artist George Chapman (1908-93) first encountered the Rhondda Valley in 1953, he happened to be reading a series of books by US writer William Faulkner.

The toy manufacturer Märklin did not just produce models for private use.

Spot the difference?

Sheet of various figures and body parts in red and white chalk set an auction record for Primaticcio

A Citroën 2CV toy car is not quite as glamorous as a Lotus Esprit, even when the full-size version helps to save James Bond in an epic chase.

ATG’s pick of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com, featuring both the highest prices over-estimate and the top prices paid online

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

Matthew Boulton’s inventory of stock in 1782 lists “1 small figure of Minerva”, according to Nicholas Goodison’s Ormolu: the Work of Matthew Boulton, 1974.

Our selection of lots from five upcoming auctions

Silverware with connections to key figures from the famous French firm of Puiforcat proved to be a major component in a sale of items from a Parisian family collection held by Beaussant Lefèvre (28% buyer’s premium).

An untitled abstract by Gillian Ayres (1930-2018) was among the works attracting interest from the collection of Simon and Jennifer Murray at Dore & Rees (25% buyer’s premium) in Somerset.

I read with particular interest Graham Smith’s announcement last June of his intention to retire after 50 years in the antiques business. He began working for Owen Humble in April 1973.