Pick of the Week

A hitherto unknown portrait of Nelson sold for three times the top estimate at the Charles Miller (24% buyer’s premium) auction on November 5.

This sculptural white porcelain group of Ganymede and the Eagle is a rare survivor from the St James’s factory run by Charles Gouyn in London c.1749-60.

The opening lot of Flints Auctions’ photographica and scientific instruments sale in Reading on October 18 was an exceptional Victorian microscope.

“Germany calling, Germany calling” were the chilling opening words spoken by the upper-class British accent of William Joyce – Lord Haw Haw – and other presenters in propaganda radio broadcasts from Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

Albrecht Dürer’s medal dedicated to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, is among the most important medals of the Northern Renaissance. As only four are known to commerce, the appearance of one for sale is significant.

A tribal war club from the Marquesas Islands with textbook provenance has sold for £71,000 at Woolley & Wallis. The u’u (head club) came for sale at the Salisbury saleroom from the descendants of an early-19th century missionary.

Until electricity became commonplace in homes, the power source of choice for the gramophone was a spring motor that required frequent winding. One unusual solution to silent interludes at the dinner dance was to power the device by hot air.

George du Maurier (1834-96) joined the staff at Punch magazine in 1865, drawing two ink cartoons a week until his eyesight deteriorated in 1891. His most common targets were the affected manners of Victorian society and Britain’s growing middle class in particular.

The National Museums of Scotland has been revealed as the buyer of the Storrar Coverlet – a rare woollen textile withdrawn at the 11th hour from a sale at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh in August.

Some of the rarest and most desirable of all English creamware jugs were those made for the American market. One of them, titled Signals at Portland Observatory, sold for $4400/£3600 (plus premium) at the Bourgeault-Horan auction in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

A complete set of plans showing what was once the world’s largest industrial complex and the British state’s single biggest investment has sold in Cornwall. Thomas Milton’s plans of the Royal Dockyards sold to an online buyer for £10,000 (plus 18% buyer’s premium) at David Lay's latest sale in Penzance.

When auctioneer Tony Pratt spotted a mysterious shape in the undergrowth of a back garden in Hythe he wasn’t expecting to uncover a very large pottery bear.

Did a watch offered for sale in Carlisle at the end of July once belong to Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)? Two centuries of provenance suggest it did.

A controversial Second World War poster by renowned designer Abram Games (1914-96) has sold for what is believed to be an auction record.

A rare copy of the earliest-known depiction of a book auction emerged for sale in Gloucestershire at the end of last month.

The origin of ‘Tudor’ globe pomanders is still under discussion. It is generally thought that most originate from northern Europe but were probably made by itinerant craftsmen in a number of countries.

‘Boxing Badgers’ is one of just two known occasions when the celebrated taxidermist Peter Spicer (1839-1935) ventured into the strange world of the anthropomorphic tableau.

A pre-press version of a key map of colonial America emerged for sale at Swann Auction Galleries in New York on June 6. Carrying an estimate of $30,000-50,000, it sold at $100,000/£76,900 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) – a sum that reflected its extraordinary provenance.

Berlin auction house Grisebach posted an auction record for the Swiss artist Karl Stauffer-Bern (1857-91) on May 29 when it sold a self-portrait which had been recently restituted to the family of its original Jewish owners.

A remarkable example of 16th century cross-culture art – a feather ‘mosaic’ picture made in Mexico for Christian conquerors – has been purchased at auction by the Musée du Quai Branly.