Print Edition

Sworders offers late 19th and 20th century styles reflecting the period zeitgeist.

In the latest of our occasional series of collector interviews, we talk to Musa Igrek, who won the ABA Book Collecting Prize 2018 for his assemblage of secretly funded government-sponsored works during the Cold War.

A selection of toys and games at the Bath Decorative Antiques Fair proves that antique playthings have their place as both decorative items and collectors’ pieces.

It’s not every day you see an auctioneer holding a 5ft 6in (1.67m) long sperm whale penis. Then again, it’s not every day that you see the sort of lots that are offered in Sworders’ Out of the Ordinary auction.

After re-booting the moribund firm of Hutchinson Scott (20% buyer’s premium) in 2016, former dealers Michael Scott and Paul Hodson have now bought their premises at Embsay Mill at Skipton.

MADAM – As a long-term collector of antiques, as well as a student of the auction scene and an active participant in the ongoing debate on the ivory ban, I thought that it might be helpful to bring readers up-to-date in respect of approaches I have made in recent months to Defra’s Ivory Policy Team.

As featured on the cover of ATG No 2377, more treasures associated with the ‘Tiger of Mysore’, Tipu Sultan, are scheduled for auction in March at the Antony Cribb sale.

Christie’s says its London spring sales programme is the “strongest it has ever had” despite concerns of a no-deal Brexit.

Members of the trade federation Conseil National du Marché de l’Art (CNMA) have published an open letter to the French government calling for changes to stop France’s art market losing out to the UK after Brexit.

A group of illuminated manuscripts valued at £100,000 that were stolen from a London auction house in 2016 have been recovered in Italy.

The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association (ABA) has joined forces with Shakespeare’s Globe as its charity partner for the next edition of its June flagship fair.

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.

An oval oil portrait painted by the Chinese artist Spoilum (fl.1785-1805) depicting Captain George Delanoe, a 1st Lieutenant and Commander of HMS Repulse, drew fervent interest at Mellors & Kirk's latest sale in Nottingham.

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

A New York institution has consigned an intriguing Netherlandish devotional painting to Freeman’s sale in Philadelphia on February 27. The small oil on cradled oak panel is one of only a dozen pictures by a workshop known only by the moniker Master of the Embroidered Foliage.

Among the prominent sitters for the Austrian artist Wilhelm Viktor Krausz (1878-1959) was Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis.

MADAM – I am following the current debate regarding the range and fairness of auctioneers’ fees.

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.