Features

There is a decidedly French flavour to the loan exhibition at this year’s Biennale. Prominently displayed under the central dome of the Grand Palais will be a selection of works from the extensive Napoleonic collection of Pierre-Jean Chalençon.

As well as the themed shows, some of which are detailed on these two pages, this year’s Parcours has a loan exhibition that goes to the roots of the French tribal art collecting.

An old and respected provenance can still hold sway even in no longer buoyant sectors of the market.

After 49 years of trading in Manhattan, ceramics and glass dealer Leo Kaplan Ltd closed its doors earlier this year.

The most desirable of all sealed bottles are those that are both named and dated. It is the possibility for geneaological research that fires many collectors.

A valuation day find for Kingham & Orme (20% buyer’s premium), this Dutch-engraved East India Company baluster goblet c.1760, took a multi-estimate £7500 in Evesham.

It was not only in London that Eastern daggers made a big impression in UK auctions this summer.

On the day that the Bastille was stormed Louis XVI famously recorded “rien” (nothing) in his game book.

Signed in gold to the 10in (25cm) damascus barrels Manton London, the best-known name among London gunsmiths, a cased pair of 25-bore flintlock duelling pistols led the specialist arms and armour sale held by Antony Cribb (22% buyer’s premium) at Abingdon on July 24.

It has not been a vintage season for armour in the saleroom, but some of the recent highlights from London and Munich are shown here.

A famous royal regiment was remembered at the Peter Francis (20% buyer’s premium) auction in Carmarthen.

It took a bid of €60,000 (£53,100) to secure a pair of flintlock pistols of c.1730 from the armoury of the Princes of Lobkowitz at Hermann Historica (25% buyer’s premium) in Munich in May.

The classic English sporting gun is a sidelock, but for many the ‘round-action’ shotguns perfected by John Dickson of Edinburgh in the 1870s are the most elegant of all.

Edged weapons from the East dominated the summer sale at Thomas Del Mar (24% buyer’s premium) in London on June 27 and it was an old collection of Indian dress daggers that produced the highest prices.

A rare and early combination of a war hammer and pistol was a highlight of the Bonhams (25/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale in Knightsbridge on May 23, selling for £24,000.

The top lot at Bonhams (25/12.5% buyer’s premium) in San Francisco on June 19 was an exceptional cased example of a specially engraved Colt 1851 percussion revolver with shoulder stock.

Among the thousands of lots in Hermann Historica’s (25% buyer’s premium) May sales series in Munich, one of the highlights was this gold inlaid karud from Turkestan which sold at €29,000 (£25,665).

Not every Victorian silver tea and coffee service was sold for scrap in the great meltdown of 2011– when at one point the price reached almost £30 per oz.

While good-quality but familiar Georgian silver such as entrée dishes, tureens and sauceboats estimated in the £6000-12,000 range met stiff resistance at Dorchester auction house Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) on June 28, two top-quality pieces made their money.

These outsize tongs, below, proved the major surprise at Adam’s (20% buyer’s premium) in Dublin on June 17.