Pick of the Week

In the Late Middle Ages the chaplet, made in many materials from boxwood to precious metals, was a commonplace aid to keep count of the repetition of prayers or the chapters read in a Book of Hours.

A carving of a deerhound which once adorned a 19th century yacht more than doubled the house record for a figurehead at a Charles Miller auction in west London. The item sold for £52,000 had a royal connection but it was the quality and condition which secured the high price, said Miller.

A manuscript for Rebecca and a favourite typewriter were among the top lots in a collection of objects and ephemera once owned by author and playwright Daphne du Maurier (1907-89) sold at Rowley’s in Ely (22.5% buyer’s premium).

Although catalogued as 19th century, this horn, fruitwood and bone inlaid oval patch or snuff box offered by Rogers Jones in Colwyn Bay in north Wales is of a type associated with the late 17th century.

A large oil on panel map by MacDonald Gill celebrating the presence of stationer WH Smith on the British high street in the 1920s was hammered down at £50,000 in Gloucestershire.

Previously unpublished sketches and letters by the American artist and traveller George Catlin (1796-1872) attracted multiple bidders at Forum Auctions in London.

A hunger strike ‘Fed By Force’ medal awarded to Suffragette Selina Martin (1882-1972) has been snapped up at auction by an Australian museum.

Surprise bid highlights demand for vintage Rolex accessories at auction.

Three models from an English porcelain factory about which almost nothing is known surfaced for sale in East Sussex last week.

Although catalogued as 18th century, this marquetry table cabinet – sold for a multi-estimate sum in Ireland last week – is more probably late 16th or early 17th century.

The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle was among the buyers when Tennants sold 13 quilts that belonged to Durham hill farmer Hannah Hauxwell (1926-2018) on February 9.

An 18th century pocket watch by Gibraltarian goldsmith Henry Cowper emerged for sale at Rowley’s auction house in Ely. It belonged to a Lincolnshire private collector who bought it over 50 years ago for £1 from a former resident of the Rock.

An exceptional Victorian scratch-built model steam engine has returned home after the maker’s great-grandson bought it from UK dealer Vavasseur Antiques.

A sledge from the first expedition to the Antarctic led by Ernest Shackleton sold for £115,000 in Bonhams’ Travel and Exploration sale on February 6.

Lovely bunch of blooms? A closer look reveals Irish Quaker’s conchological talent...

The precise function of the series of English tin-glazed earthenware seated cat jugs common to the 1650s-70s is unknown but, as many are dated and initialled, they may have been given as marriage or betrothal gifts.

Ephemera, photos and, remarkably, a penguin egg relating to Captain Robert Scott’s ill-fated 'Terra Nova' Expedition to the Antarctic in 1910 were eagerly contested in the room, on the phone and online at Stroud Auction Rooms’ latest sale.

Auctions on New Year’s Day are a tradition in regional North America. The sale at Nadeau’s in Windsor, Connecticut, on the first day of 2019 included a collection of 17th and 18th century English silver that had been given to Yale University in 1896 in memory of a former alumnus, the Pennsylvania coal baron James Browne Neale.

“Every specialist has an object that they dream of having in their sales,” says Matthew Rubinger, Christie’s head of handbags and accessories. “For me, it’s the aluminium Explorer trunk by Louis Vuitton. The market is full of silver-coloured metal trunks, but this piece is their inspiration.”

A table designed by a teenaged Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-52) for Windsor Castle sold for £23,500 (plus 21% buyer’s premium) at Gorringe’s of Lewes on December 4.