UK

A selection of eight top items sold at regional salerooms who reported hammer totals for ATG's annual round-up of the auction market for 2018.

Topped by the 17th century Dutch bottles at £30,000 (see ATG No 2375), the year’s first sale at Hannam’s (23% buyer’s premium) had other treasures among the 2000 lots including the French bronze figural torchères, right.

If the Battle of Britain is your collecting field, then the sale of a Kent collection held in late 2018 would have been a major draw.

The National Botanic Gardens of Wales spreads out into 500-plus acres at Llanarthne in the Carmarthenshire countryside and boasts a spectacular structure designed by Norman Foster: the largest single-span glasshouse in the world.

The continued interest in Victorian music boxes in this age of Spotify and streaming was evident when three were among the 1500-lot sale held by Unique Auctions (17.5% buyer’s premium) to launch the new year.

Former courthouse in West Yorkshire opens as antiques centre and community hub.

The traditionally ‘dead’ period between Christmas and New Year was enlivened by the December 28 sale at Wotton Auction Rooms (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Gloucestershire – to the extent that more than 20,000 people suffering withdrawal symptoms worldwide viewed it online and 1360 of them registered to bid.

Arctic and Antarctic exploration was the main theme of a library assembled over many years by architect Roger Casson (1943-2016).

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from January 22-February 1, 2019.

Greenslade Taylor Hunt’s (19.5% buyer’s premium) first sale of the year got off to a bright start with a Singaporean painting sailing to £19,000.

Sensual, satirical and grotesque: the works of Beresford Egan (1905-84) certainly fit a description of ‘distinctive’.

Historically the first major sale of the year, the January ‘furniture’ auction at Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) turns eyes towards Salisbury for evidence of what the next 12 months will bring.

'Snow on the farmhouses of Les Contamines-Montjoie' has begun to thaw in this oil by Charles-Henri Contencin (1898-1955), part of John Mitchell’s annual 'Peaks and Glaciers' exhibition (January 24-March 8).

Much of the pre-sale interest in the 19th century paintings offered at the major London rooms centred on two landscapes by Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) at Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium).

A letter of 1803 in which George III, writing to Lord Hawkesbury, effectively declares his intention to renew war on France, was at £9000 one of the more successful lots in a recent Cambridge sale that produced its fair share of surprise results.

Dated c.1930, this Lenci figure of a girl in fashionable culottes, below, was estimated at £200-300 at Adam Partridge (20% buyer’s premium) but appears to have been spotted as one of the rarer products of the Turin factory.

The owner of an 18th century double-manual harpsichord, the only one of its type known to exist, has been temporarily prevented from exporting it in the hope a UK buyer can be found.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.