UK

Still a figure of glamour 450 years after her execution, Mary Queen of Scots was reputed to have embroidered the c.16th century fragment of bed curtain sold at Hansons (25% buyer’s premium) at Etwall on December 7.

Despite his famous name, the artist Henry Strachey (1863-1940) has never had much prominence at auction, with only around a dozen works having emerged.

There are only three other known examples of this early David Hockney (b.1937) etching titled 'Self-Portrait (not in S.A.C. or Tokyo)'.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Japanese antique ivories have been gradually disappearing from the catalogues of prominent dealers and major auction houses but good examples are still being sold in the regions.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the Nobel prize-winning poet, writer, composer, philosopher and social reformer, began to practise as an artist aged 60.

Decorative dealer Barney James of The Home Bothy stands at the Decorative Antiques and Textiles Fair in Battersea from January 25-30.

Dovehouse Fine Antiques Fairs’ organiser Jane Alexander says that her long-planned Little Chelsea Decorative Arts and Antiques Fair at Chelsea Old Town Hall is on hold for the time being.

Perhaps the most identifiable production of the Daoguang period (1820-50) of the Qing empire is the medallion bowl.

New Cheshire shop allows couple to expand their offerings, especially vintage fashion

Collections relating to leading British film director Lewis Gilbert (1920-2018) and his wife of 53 years Hylda (d.2005) provided very different lots for Billingshurst auction house Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium).

The outstanding jade offered in the regions in the October-December period was this pale celadon teapot and cover that came for sale at Duke’s in Dorchester on December 8 from a Dutch private collection where it had been since the 1980s.

Bezoars (from the Persian pād-zahr meaning ‘poison antidote’) are the calcified concretion found in the stomachs of some animals. Prized for their supposed medicinal properties, until the Enlightenment science at the beginning of the 18th century they could sell for more than their weight in gold.

After 48 years dealing from a shop on New Kings Road in Fulham, dealer John Clay is closing his doors.

In 1602 the Dutch painter and printmaker Jan Saenredam made an engraving of a whale that had been washed ashore near the town of Beverwijk.

A 19th century sea otter amulet in walrus ivory and baleen fashioned as a mother and her pup sold for £24,000 at Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium).

Grand Canal sketch has provenance to artist’s student who became a renowned collector

Edinburgh dealer Anthony Woodd has joined forces with James Harvey, pooling their combined 70 years of dealing experience to open Harvey & Woodd.

Original French text, translated by Caxton, then illustrated by 1930s engravings

Leading a recent Woolley & Wallis' (25/12% buyer’s premium) sale in Salisbury were two scroll paintings by well-known 20th century Chinese artists that came by descent from Field Marshal Archibald Percival Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell (1883-1950).