Front Page and News

The latest series of Old Master auctions in London looked a little thin with the evening sales comprising less than 30 lots, but the series was not without its highpoints.

A new record for Limehouse porcelain was set at Bonhams’ Fine Glass and British Ceramics sale for a recently discovered second known slip-cast cat model.

The two leading US trade associations have won a legal challenge against a law that said dealers in New York could not display antiques made from more than 20% elephant ivory.

A cabinet cup and saucer decorated by perhaps the most skilled of all Sèvres painters was spotted for sale in Derbyshire.

Two previously lost works by Italian painter Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614) will go on display in the new year after recently appearing at auction. Fontana has been described as the first female career artist in western Europe as her family relied on her income.

This handsome Georgian mahogany silver or china table soared above expectations at an auction in the Channel Islands.

A spectacular Victorian silver fox modelled by taxidermist James Rowland Ward sold for £100,000 at Tennants on November 16.

Among the opening sales at the FAB Paris fair at the newly restored Grand Palais was this Sicilian Baroque polychrome and gilt wood sculpture group of the Annunciation.

A pair of pistols that were presented by Napoleon just six weeks after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo are on offer in Thomas Del Mar’s sale of Fine Antique Arms, Armour & Militaria on December 4.

A US-based vendor cashed in when a portrait by Sir William Orpen (1878-1931) of his lover Evelyn St George sold at Sotheby’s for more than double the amount it had fetched less than four months earlier at a New Jersey auction.

A Dickin Medal – the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross – is expected to reach £30,000-40,000 at coin and medal auction specialist Morton & Eden in London on December 4.