Print Edition

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

MADAM – I totally agree with the comments made by Eddie Holt (‘Spectacularly wrong valuations? No thanks’, Letters, ATG No 2376) regarding valuations given by ‘experts’.

Following the fall of Seringapatam in India on May 4, 1799, portions of the spoils were variously allocated to senior officers of the British force.

As parliamentary debates on future trade relations with the EU raged in London, cross-border business carried on regardless in West Sussex at IACF’s Ardingly International Antiques and Collectors Fair on January 15-16.

It was not a vintage season for armour in the salerooms, but in Thomas Del Mar’s (24% buyer’s premium) auction on December 5 this very original English or Flemish close helmet of c.1560 reached £11,000.

An English School painting depicting one of the earliest venues in cricket was knocked down at £14,000 in a Winchester auction.

British art specialist Patricia Jordan Evans rounds off more than four decades in the trade with her next show called 'The Last Hurrah! 45 Years at Bohun Gallery'.

Buyers are spoilt for choice during May and early June when three decorative and salvage fairs will be running in the UK, all in interesting outdoor settings. Here is a short focus on them.

Exotic blades from all parts of the world are making headlines in the salerooms. Recent auctions have produced some interesting results from unlooked-for places, but none was less expected than the £42,000 paid for a 19th century Siamese niello and silver-gilt mounted sword in the Japanese taste at Thomas Del Mar (24% buyer’s premium) in London on December 5.

Modern British pictures by female artists made a major contribution to the bottom line at Sworders’ (23% buyer’s premium) dispersal of the Barbara Holliday Collection.

Three modestly valued works sold in regional sales.

A recently released new film about the relationship between Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots, one in which certain historical liberties appear to have been taken concerning the generally accepted belief that the two women never actually met, brings a topicality to a letter offered last month in London.

Sales of ski posters have long been a seasonal feature of the auction scene scheduled for those winter months when enthusiasts take to the slopes.

Once breech-loading guns became the norm, the gun itself was only one part of the equation. Ammunition was the great variable, as demonstrated by the advertising display boards produced in large numbers for the gun shops and ironmongers of the United Kingdom.

Barewall Art Gallery in Burslem recently sold 'Chapel' by Arthur Berry (1925-94), raising £2170 for the British Heart Foundation.

Fairs to visit this weekend in Didcot and Dorset.

The Thomas Del Mar (24% buyer’s premium) sale in London on December 5 included several excellent pairs of English pistols.

Two suits of armour that emerged in recent auctions at Continental salerooms.

An unusual Chinese School picture of a 17th century Dutch missionary scene led Christie’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) £2m sale of topographical pictures in London.

Illustrated below is the title page of a copy of the very first book by CS Lewis to be printed, Spirits in Bondage of 1919.