Features

Dreweatts’ Modern and Contemporary art sale in Newbury on April 3 will offer a range of Modern British pictures, including a selection of St Ives School group works. However, one of the main highlights in this category is a wartime painting by John Armstrong (1893-1973) which carries an estimate of £20,000-30,000.

An intriguing find by a dealer new to TEFAF Maastricht leads a look at some of the highlights on offer at the huge event.

A surge of fresh faces in the Modern section, a shift in the global vetting policy and stronger links with the host city are among the recent shake-ups at TEFAF Maastricht, as CEO Patrick van Maris tells ATG.

Old Master art dealer Mark Weiss began exhibiting at TEFAF Maastricht in 1988. But for all the important 16th and 17th century portraits Weiss has sold at the Dutch fair since then, few are likely to have made a local connection quite like his gallery’s star object for 2019.

Art dealers and auction house experts were struck from all TEFAF vetting panels following the introduction of a new global policy last year.

It’s 12 months since Oliver Moss took the helm of fourth-generation Chinese and Japanese art dealership Sydney L. Moss. A busy year culminated in Moss making Japanese sculpture discoveries that will form the centrepiece of the dealership’s 2019 TEFAF Maastricht stand.

This exceptional candlestick belongs to a small group of cast and enamelled brass wares made in the second half of the 17th century. All are distinguished by their method of production: unlike champlévé or cloisonné decoration, the enamelled fields were cast in the mould.

The sale of two great collections at auction – one in London, the other in New York – has highlighted the ebbs and flows of the market for early British pottery and furniture.

This 2ft (60cm) high Charles II needlework looking glass worked with figures and fantastical beasts emblematic of the seasons was estimated at $10,000-15,000 but sold at $80,000 (£61,500) in the Vogel collection auction at Sotheby's New York.

The models used in 17th century ceramics were typically derived from contemporary metalwork – and occasionally vice versa.

This set of English painted sycamore trenchers were a wedding gift to Roger Simpson and his bride Mary in 1625 from their cousin. Each plate has an inscription that includes either the bride’s or groom’s name alongside verses about love, sex and marriage.

The Vogels bought 17th and early 18th century silver from How of Edinburgh, SJ Phillips in London and Shrubsole in New York.

Pictured here are three pieces from the Pelham Olive collection sold by Bonhams on January 31. Two are early English delft and are prize examples because they are inscribed and dated. The third is an example of Staffordshire slipware.

It is a quarter of a century since ATG’s first overview of London’s numismatic auction market. Here we review the heads and the tails of 2018.

ATG’s selection of 11 coins and medals lots that were among the highlights sold at UK auctions in 2018.

Group amassed over 20 years now going under the hammer at Bonhams is attracting worldwide interest from would-be bidders.

Among the more eagerly contested entries to the Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) sale on January 24 was a late 19th century replica of the Alfred Jewel: the great example of Anglo-Saxon goldsmithing found in Somerset in 1693 and today one of the most popular exhibits at the Ashmolean Museum.

A selection of 10 stand-out jewellery lots offered at auction in February-April 2019.

A rare Longines centre seconds military wristwatch – a type developed in 1944 for the rigours of airborne work by the Research & Development team of the War Department – sold for a multi-estimate £11,200 at Barbara Kirk (15% buyer’s premium) in Penzance on November 27 last year.

A local family that could trace a clear line back to the 1750 was the consignor of this gold, white enamel and citrine mourning ring to Henry Adams in Chichester.