Features

Three individual profiles of first-time exhibitors at TEFAF Maastricht 2020: Runjeet Singh, Stuart Lochhead and Aline Chastel.

A selection of upcoming entertainment lots at auctions ranging from the Fab Four in New York to James Bond in London and Tommy Cooper in Stockport.

Concert posters from the earliest days of bands that later became famous are particulary sought-after at auction. Leading this selection from recent sales is a five-figure example from 1964 which promotes one of the first Rolling Stones tour performances, but many others are available at a lower price range announcing appearances at venues with evocative names such as Bridlington Spa Hall, Basildon Locarno Ballroom and Barnston Women’s Institute.

Not all the posters making four figures at auction fall into the usual Star Wars/James Bond/Hammer/early horror bracket.

The market for both film and music posters is booming but original artwork for such designs can also be a very collectable option for buyers.

The art market is coming to grips with a new regime of stricter regulation which forces auction houses and dealers to know a lot more about their customers than ever before. The new anti-money laundering regulation came into force on January 10 but the market has been awaiting a document of guidance that will help them steer through this complex new regulations. Here art market lawyer Tom Christopherson, one of the BAMF team reviewing the new guidance, runs through the 109-page document to help explain some of the most complicated elements.

A UK auction record for a copper coin was set on September 24 when a rare Edward VIII 1937 pattern penny sold at Spink for £111,000 (plus 20% buyer’s premium). The coin was made as a trial, ahead of the king’s abdication in December 1936, and was never released for circulation.

Among the ceramics to be included in the Thomaston Place Winter Auction to be held in Maine from February 28-March 1, is this 2½in (6.25cm) high English George III period earthenware mug.

Judith Howard (1945-2019), collector, part-time dealer, museum curator, author, TV expert and lecturer, was a self-confessed ‘maximalist’. Every shelf and wall space in her Wiltshire end-of-terrace was there to be filled. Dusting was a chore reserved for just one day a year.

A good range of 18th and 19th century English ceramics is included in Skinner’s February 14 sale of European furniture and decorative arts in Boston.

This silver denarius from 43BC is struck to one side with a youthful male of Quintus Arrius, who was praetor in 72BC and propraetor in 71BC.

Spink (20% buyer’s premium) offered the only Victoria Cross group to appear at auction in 2019.

A key feature of the ceramics section of Dreweatts’ sale on February 19 will be 55 lots from a local private collection featuring 18th century English porcelain.

This ‘superb’ rose ryal, produced during the third coinage of James I in 1619-20, sold for £34,000 at Baldwin’s of St James (20% buyer’s premium).

If the story of the sinking of the Bismarck in 1941 is well known, the fate of sister ship the Tirpitz is less familiar.

The opening lot of the Five Centuries sale at Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium) in Edinburgh on February 5 was this previously unrecorded maiolica handled and spouted wet drug jar.

Found in a newly ploughed field close to a Roman road near Dover early in 2019, this gold aureus is one of just 24 recognised from the brief reign of Allectus (293-296AD).

A sizeable helping of English and Continental ceramics featured in the large auction titled Mario Buatta: Prince of Interiors held by Sotheby’s New York (25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium).

Caughley Porcelain was founded in Shropshire (at Broseley) so it is hardly surprising that local saleroom Halls has been offering its fair share of consignments from this 18th century factory whose wares rivalled those of the Staffordshire potteries and Worcester in particular.

A record take of £48m and a one-third increase in the number of lots available to bidders – ATG reviews a healthy 2019 for London numismatic saleroom