UK

Good times at the Oxford rooms of Mallams (20% buyer’s premium), when all bar one of 56 clocks got away almost all going comfortably above estimates.

A rare Georgian invalid’s ‘chair lift’ is one of the highlights at the Scone Palace Antiques & Fine Art Fair.

Collectables untouched by Byronmania but selling well at the Harold Ward auction at Mellors & Kirk on February 6-7 included a 19th century ‘Grand Tour’ Italian alabaster model of the Piazza del Duomo, Pisa, and a gold-mounted malacca walking cane engraved to the pommel with the 1816-37 royal arms.

The sale of two great collections at auction – one in London, the other in New York – has highlighted the ebbs and flows of the market for early British pottery and furniture.

With the great country house contents sales of the past now largely a distant memory, single-owner collection sales have become the next-best thing.

The best Egyptian antiquities now engender much more than mere scholastic fervour but, for the most part, humbler objects remain eminently affordable.

Drawing interest from the US was a portrait of a fierce-looking Scottish laird by John Pettie (1839-93).

Three lots selling for multi-estimate sums at regional auctions in the UK including a Staffordshire slipware honey pot from c.1700 that drew demand at Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury.

Billed as a private London collection, the February 5 sale at Chiswick Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) betrayed a single owner with a good eye and wide-ranging enthusiasms.

A little-known work by a prolific Newlyn School artist became the top lot of Scottish saleroom Elgin Auction Centre’s (15% buyer’s premium) February 6 sale.

Late 18th-century works for children combine juvenile diversion with moral instruction.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from February 26-March 9, 2019.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Lamps in south London form a stylish and popular part of the mid-century collecting field.

Letters on the sails of the vessels seen on the title-page of Pedro de Syria’s Arte de la Verdadera Navegacion, published in Valencia in 1602, are a reminder that it was Columbus’ voyage in Spanish service just over a hundred years earlier that led to the ‘discovery’ of the Americas.

Out-sold by the 100-times estimate £22,000 Japanese vase featured on last week’s News pages (ATG No 2380), this gold and silver-gilt chalice, right, offered at Lytham St Annes auction house Gerrards (18% buyer’s premium) on February 7 was a more predictable five-figure star.

Emma and Oli Jones of JOS Events are taking over Amulet Fairs’ antiques and collectors’ fairs run at the Oswestry Showground by Sheila Jackson for 30 years.

In ATG No 2380 February 23 I wrote a piece on the annual antiques fair held at Wilton House in Wiltshire from Friday to Saturday, March 8-10. It is worth noting that the Provincial Booksellers’ Association (PBFA) is running an antiquarian and out-of-print book fair at the Michael Herbert Hall in the village of Wilton on Sunday, March 10.

Dealer Philip Mould stages 'Jewel in the Hand: Early Portrait Miniatures from Noble and Private Collections' at its Pall Mall gallery from March 12-April 18.

Chichester dealer Rob Shaw is a regular stallholder in the George Stephenson building at IACF Newark. He is a general dealer in antiques but specialises in Chinese works of art.