UK

Among the very rarest bottles to appear for sale in recent months was a miniature shaft and globe in dark aqua glass, c.1650, sold in South Yorkshire.

A new record for a Royal Doulton figure has been set in Stoke-on-Trent.

The sale of Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh on July 13 included a document signed by the adventurer and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh (1554-1618).

Two Scottish auction houses have merged to form a new operation: Thomson Roddick Callan.

Just as the title reads, this album offered by Mellors & Kirk in Nottingham contains Specimens of Needle-Work Executed in the Female Model School, Kildare-Place, Dublin.

A recent sale held by Thomson Roddick (18% buyer’s premium) of Carlisle, one that included further items of local interest from the library of the late Maurice Cole, was led by one of the newer books on offer.

Accessible art is the aim of North Yorkshire dealer who hopes to enthuse a younger crowd

Couple move upstairs in their 17th century Cotswolds townhouse to open an antiques shop below

Mentmore (Towers) in Buckinghamshire was built in 1852-4 by Sir Joseph Paxton – creator of the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition – and Paxton’s son-in-law GH Stokes for Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild.

‘The Gregson House’ and its contents date from the early Victorian period.

Glamorous portraits of wealthy women such as Lady Northcliffe command the highest prices

A romanticised view of Venice by Austrian painter Franz Richard Unterberger (1838-1902) led the latest fine art sale staged by Cambridge saleroom Cheffins (24.5% buyer’s premium).

Estimated at £40-60, a pair of puce decorated creamware plates sold for a surprise £2000 at Bamfords (21% buyer’s premium) in Derbyshire.

A small James I oak chest lined with original block-printed lining paper incorporating the Royal Arms within the Garter is on offer at the Suffolk House Antiques summer exhibition.