UK

The fitted interior of this William & Mary casket, below, was later but its fine brass-bound marquetry exterior with hidden lock mechanism made it the most eye-catching lot at Mallams’ (22.5% buyer’s premium) auction in Cheltenham on June 6.

Ceramics commemorating the coronation of Edward VIII are less rare than often supposed, having been produced in abundance before the coronation was aborted. Most bring relatively small sums.

Featuring in the same two-day auction as a £7000 cache of Beatrix Potter ephemera found in a Cumbrian Victorian villa which had made national headlines, this less-heralded sofa impressed at 1818 Auctioneers (17.5% buyer’s premium).

This c.1800 flintlock pistol below by James Wilkinson, London, was used on packet ships to protect the General Post Office mail.

‘Boxing Badgers’ is one of just two known occasions when the celebrated taxidermist Peter Spicer (1839-1935) ventured into the strange world of the anthropomorphic tableau.

In the 1950s French designer Raymond Cohen and his firm Cohray were producing a range of ultra-modern furniture that – although made for the machine age – were all put together by hand.

A rare 19th century pearlware horse is available to buyers visiting BADA’s inaugural staging of the BADA Collection at 46 Pimlico Road this summer.

An artwork painted with oil and sand is among the offerings at the inaugural Fair for Saatchi.

A festival of rugs and textiles organised by HALI magazine joins the busy line-up of London events this summer.

The resurgent interest in quality Japanese material and the slower revival of English furniture were both evident in a cabinet on stand sold at West Sussex auction house Toovey’s (24.5% buyer’s premium).

Bearing a thumbprint on the title-page – along with a note by a secretary, Susan Macey, witnessing it as genuine – a 1988 UK edition of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief of History of Time… was estimated at £200-400 but sold for £3000 in a May 30 sale.

Among stand-out exhibitions in the well-represented area of works on paper at this year’s London Art Week (LAW) is a collection of drawings by the German artist Adolph Menzel (1815-1905).

While fairs remain a vital part of the art market calendar, the rich series of gallery selling exhibitions in Mayfair and St James’s this summer offer more chances to view and buy – at a different pace.

For close to three centuries buyers of art and antiques have been spoilt for choice in London. A city synonymous with archives, galleries, museums, conservators and curators, it continues to support long-standing streets of antiques dealers, centres and a plethora of regular fairs and markets. As this guide to the hotspots suggests, most of them are complementary rather than in competition, and all budgets are catered for.

As the battle for the ‘middle market’ heats up, the London auction scene today offers visitors a wider choice of items to buy and more places to bid for them.

For the British art and antiques trade, the summer ‘season’ still carries plenty of resonance, particularly in London. The days of rowing club colours at Henley and Georgian walnut at the Grosvenor House Hotel have given way to the plethora of June and July showpiece auctions and a clutch of fairs and dealer-led events – London Art Week, Olympia, Masterpiece London, and new kid on the block Fair For Saatchi.

Britain still has many ‘antiques’ towns and streets – those picturesque corners of the island populated by shops, galleries and centres that together act as a magnet for antiques tourists. Two of the largest communities of dealers close to London are Petworth and Hungerford, while a busy schedule of regular fairs and markets takes place to the south-west of London.