UK

As Belfast capitalises on its Titanic history and locally filmed TV series Game of Thrones, two enterprising dealers are seizing the moment to launch a new fair.

Not always predicted but overwhelming when it comes, big-money Russian interest sent a bronze equine group soaring at Dawson’s (23% buyer’s premium) in Maidenhead.

Lots offered towards the start of sales at the same auction house prove successful.

A dealer who was so disappointed that the second of the biannual Art Deco fairs held at Eltham Palace in September had been cancelled has launched his own nearby.

Former farmer Ralph Retallack is now an antiques dealer in Falmouth with his partner Nicola Fuller. They are launching an antiques and decorative fair near St Ives this September and are looking to attract more quality exhibitors including architectural salvage dealers.

In this group of predominantly Victorian ceramics beloware two 18th century pieces: a typical polychrome delft plate of modest value and a far more commercial early English toby jug.

Better by a distance than nine similar items, a mid-17th century wainscot chair offered by Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) in Crewkerne demonstrated the yawning price gap between the acceptable and the desirable in the early oak market.

Michael Wilson of Highland Antiques in Aberdeen specialises in rare and collectable antique silver.

Clock produced by Englishman influential in French horology impresses in Norfolk auction.

Drawing keen interest at Hansons (20% buyer’s premium) in Derbyshire last month was a work by Belgian painter Francois Joseph Navez (1787-1869), an artist who rarely appears in the UK salerooms.