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Huge new auction centre ready to launch on the edge of Bedford includes five salerooms...

Newly-independent Dreweatts will hold a third – and probably final – Mallett stock sale from Donnington Priory next month.

The European decorative arts that preceded the tribal session at John Nicholson’s (24% buyer's premium) on October 10 had included a handful of notable bids, not least the £14,500 (estimate £300-500) tendered by an Italian buyer for a small early 20th century Louis Vuitton leather box measuring just 11in (27cm) across.

A single-owner collection focusing on the polar regions was a notable feature of the travel section of the October 4 sale held by Dominic Winter (19.5% buyer’s premium). It included, at a 10-times estimate £3000, the posthumously published Memoirs of Lieutenant Joseph Rene Bellot.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

MADAM – Regarding the ivory consultation (ATG No 2312), I despair that sound pragmatic arguments have been overwhelmed by unproven and exaggerated links to the poaching problem.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi will more than double the Old Master auction record when it is offered at Christie’s New York next month.

As part of a fifth anniversary auction at Farleigh Court Golf Club on November 1, Catherine Southon is offering the first part of an archive consigned by the family of the commercial artist and cartoonist Francis Wilford-Smith (1927-2009).

The designated tribal art department at Woolley & Wallis (22% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury is now in its third year – and increasingly picking up consignments and regular buyers from well beyond its immediate hinterlands.

The Winchester saleroom Andrew Smith & Son (15% buyer’s premium) unearthed eight works by two of Singapore’s most celebrated 20th century artists for sale on September 13.

The first round of Munich auctions took place at the end of September and produced several notable results for paintings and sculpture. They include a rare appearance at the rostrum for a work by a Greek artist who studied in the Bavarian capital and a 19th century Orientalist subject painted in Rome by a German artist shortly after a return journey from Greece.

Chrissie and John Masters, of the Design Gallery in Westerham, are pictured below in their warehouse in nearby Enterprise Way, Edenbridge, both in Kent.

The estate of a prominent Jewish art collector has failed to secure the return of a rare Meissen figure that was the subject of a recent export stop.

The Brighton-based Lalique Mascot Collectors’ Club is launching the second volume of 'Unique Lalique Mascots' by Geoffrey Weiner at Love Fairs’ antiques, vintage and collectables fair at Brighton Racecourse on Sunday, October 22.

Glasgow saleroom Mulberry Bank will offer a late 18th century Qing famille rose bottle vase with an estimate of £1.5m-2m in its October 20-21 auction.

Update (July 2019): auctions resumed at Bloomsbury in 2018 following Gurr Johns' purchase of Dreweatts and Bloomsbury in 2017. In February 2019 it expanded the number of sales at its London office at 16-17 Pall Mall. The original story is below.

Anthony Browne, chairman of The British Art Market Federation (BAMF), was due to meet with environment secretary Michael Gove this week (October 10) to discuss the proposed ban on sales of ivory in the UK.

Modern sculpture, including a small rediscovered marine ivory piece by Eric Gill (1882-1940), took centre stage at Duke’s (22% buyer’s premium) in Dorset.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Trading as Hoof Brocante, Adrian Higham is among the most genial of men.