Features

Away from London, some exceptional coin sales coming up in Europe include a number of outstanding British issues.

The Royal Medal for Astronomy is presented each year by the Royal Society for distinguished contributions to the applied sciences.

Assembled over five decades by private collector Martin Burtt, The Glaisdale Agricultural Library on offer at North Yorkshire saleroom Tennants on September 30 includes volumes by the great agricultural writers of the 16th to 19th centuries.

'Hortus sanitatis' (Gart der Gesundheit, Augsburg 1485), considered among the most important early works of natural history and one of the first scientific incunabula in a vernacular language, is on offer at Munich saleroom Ketterer Kunst on November 28.

Estimated at £3000-4000, this 9½ x 12in (24 x 30.5cm) albumen print by Julia Margaret Cameron of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is offered in the Books, Maps, Manuscripts & Photography auction on September 15 at Lawrences of Crewkerne.

Catalogued as a ‘very good, complete copy in original condition of the first really modern scientific book published in England’, a 1600 first edition (Peter Short) of De Magnete by William Gilbert is estimated at £10,000-15,000 in Forum Auction’s Fine Books, Manuscripts & Works on Paper sale in London on September 29.

The Silver, Coins & Medals auction at Fellows in Birmingham on September 13 will include this garniture of three George V silver pedestal bowls with lion and serpent embellishments. estimated at £1500-2500.

Cheffins’ (24.5% buyer’s premium) latest silver offering in Cambridge was topped by a Qing trophy, c.1850.

Tennants’ (20% buyer’s premium) summer silver sale included a Victorian jug by Robert Hennell with Brontë family connections.

Edinburgh auction highlights work of the Highlands silversmiths who operated far from the control of the assay office in the Scottish capital

Nineteenth and early 20th century novelty silver continues to be one of the strengths of the collecting category.

This textbook Edwardian Arts & Crafts planished silver chalice by Omar Ramsden and fellow Sheffield-born designer Alwyn Carr, pictured below, is of extra interest for its inscription.

The sale at Swan Fine Art (21% buyer’s premium) in Tetsworth, Oxfordshire, on August 11-12 included two Irish ‘freedom’ boxes, c.1775.

Tribal Art London returns as an in-person event this year with a roster of more than 20 international exhibitors.

Bellmans is selling the collection of Anthony and Marietta Coleridge on September 7-8.

Paris’ annual gallery-based ceramics event - the Parcours de la Céramique et les Arts du Feu - takes place this year from September 20-24.

On September 15 in Bordeaux, Briscadieu will be holding a sale featuring a large group of around 100 lots of locally produced porcelains from the Verneuilh and Vanier factory, which began in the 1780s, all domestic tablewares variously decorated with floral, topographical, figural or pastoral scenes.

Collecting 18th century English porcelain is still a popular pursuit – but there’s no doubt that the core collecting audience is smaller than it once was.

The most desirable pieces of Lowestoft porcelain are typically the documentary pieces decorated with East Anglian scenes.

This Worcester teapot, offered for sale at Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) in Crewkerne, dates from the first decade of factory production: c.1755-57.