UK

Sold at Bonhams last week, the emerald in this Art Deco brooch is a clue to the remarkable life of its one-time owner Lady Hood.

A Régence period giltwood table attracted interest from across the trade, taking £52,000 (estimate £5000- 8000) at Lots Road Auctions (22% buyer’s premium).

London and Petworth dealer Timothy Langston Fine Art & Antiques has sold a portrait of the Regency period antiquarian Sir William Gell (1777-1836) to the British Museum.

A tribal war club from the Marquesas Islands with textbook provenance has sold for £71,000 at Woolley & Wallis. The u’u (head club) came for sale at the Salisbury saleroom from the descendants of an early-19th century missionary.

The first tranche of a private collection of predominantly Far Eastern maps and charts sold for more than £500,000 at Reeman Dansie and included a house record.

A poignant background story or strong suggestion of original ownership greatly adds to the appeal of early jewellery finds often unearthed by metal detectors

Boosted by the contents of a fine country home, the autumn sale at Cheffins (22.5% buyer’s premium) enjoyed moments of floor-to-ceiling success.

Just a little less famous than Fry’s 'Five Boys' image is the illustration by Tom Browne of a multi-class group outside a sweetshop with the line from 'Troilus and Cressida: One touch of Nature makes the whole World kin'.

Although the Hugo Lonitz factory produced a range of domestic tablewares and small collectables, it is best known for its naturalistic majolica groups, particularly animal and bird examples modelled in lifelike size and detail.

Auction includes collection of Modernist works breaking away from south Asian tradition

Emporium Antiques in Liskeard currently has on its site an item of local interest. This is a memorial shield, below, to the Honourable Thomas Agar-Robartes (1880-1915) who was elected as a Liberal MP for his home town of Bodmin in the 1906 general election.

Interest in glyphic art, which reached its collecting apogee during the Grand Tour collecting, is resurgent once more.

Variety was certainly in evidence in a West Sussex sale, where the teenage journal of a young stained-glass maker, two broadside ballads and an illustrated dummy for 'Down with Skool!' all brought much higher than predicted bids.

Built in the 1960s, the family-owned Bedruthan Hotel at Mawgan Porth, near Newquay on the north Cornish coast, is set in a dramatic clifftop location overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Offered with an a/f catalogue caveat, this early 20th century marine chronometer, below, quadrupled expectations at Chichester saleroom Henry Adams (20% buyer’s premium).

A 120 million-year-old fossilised ammonite is among the selection of decorative items on offer at the Chester fair following a change in ownership and focus.

Coloured diamonds aside, rubies command higher prices per carat than any other gemstone. Graded using the traditional criteria of the four Cs (colour, cut, clarity and carat weight), they are also evaluated on the basis of geographic origin with the stones from Burma commanding the most interest.

This Arts & Crafts-style necklace, alternating moonstone and chalcedony cabochons set in scrolling silver mounts, is the unmistakable work of the London jeweller Sybil Dunlop (1889-1968).

Newbury’s Special Auction Services is to expand into a double-height saleroom in the new year.