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Account of a double killing in 19th century Norwich heads a look at two-day auction.

Among a series of strong art sales reported from the recent LAPADA Art & Antiques Fair was an 18th century portrait of a lady offered by Jeremy Astfalck of The Old Corkscrew.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Banksy’s derisive portrayal of The House of Commons reduced to an assembly of primates achieved a record £8.5m (plus premium) in Sotheby’s Contemporary Art auction on October 3.

A missing Pugin parliamentary letter box has been returned to the Palace of Westminster more than 100 years after it disappeared.

Art adviser and former Masterpiece London chief executive Nazy Vassegh is planning a new art fair in May next year.

A generation ago pieces such as this splendid 20in (50cm) famille rose ‘dragon’ charger from the Guangxu period (1874-1908) were valued chiefly as decorative objects. However, appreciation of the best quality porcelain produced in the last years of the Qing continues to grow.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

In 1657, the 10-year-old Dutch orphan Christiaan Reijnaert was apprenticed to clockmaker Salomon Coster in The Hague. It was a momentous time for Coster: he is credited with building the first pendulum clock, incorporating the invention by Christian Huygens.

Since 1984, only about 20 paintings by the Turkish artist Osman Hamdi Bey (1842-1910) have come on the auction market and many of his best-known works are in international museums.

The British Antique Dealers’ Association (BADA) has committed to greater transparency and more consultation with its 300-plus members before key decisions affecting the trade body’s future are made.

Chief marketing officer Marc Sands outlines his plans for online growth at the auction house.

For a number of years, the Colchester-born artist Harry Becker (1865-1928) followed the conventional path of a professional artist, achieving significant success and exhibiting regularly at the Royal Academy. But a growing disenchantment with London led to his ultimate departure in 1913 to Suffolk.

For the first Peterborough Festival of Antiques under IACF ownership, continuity was the order of the day. In future, however, the fair organiser will look to extend the appeal of this public-oriented event.

An oil on panel of The Tower of Babel, 1604, by Abel Grimmer (1570-1618/19), offered at £1.35m by Johnny Van Haeften was one of the stand-out sales during last week’s host of London art and antique trade events.

Original paintings by Abstract artist Nicolas de Stael (1914-55) rarely appear at auction outside the main salerooms in London, Paris and New York.

MADAM – I was pleased to see the report in ATG No 2410 on the cricket collection sold by the Canterbury Auction Galleries.

Malcolm Davidson died recently at the age of 85. For many years he ran City Fine Arts in the heart of the financial district of London offering furniture and unusual items to those working in the Square Mile.

The stylish Art Deco pottery figures for which Ars Lenci became celebrated were first shown at the Turin international exhibition in 1928.

Autumn in Munich means different things to different people. For several million visitors the high point of the year is the Oktoberfest. For several thousand the main attraction is two art and antiques fairs that run more or less concurrently.