UK

The antiques trade is to be celebrated in the New Year at a museum exhibition in County Durham.

A single-owner private collection, including significant works by artists from the Modern British canon, will be sold at Sworders in Stansted Mountfitchet on January 15.

A lavish Viennese gold-mounted porcelain tureen and stand – the epitome of Habsburg court luxury during the reign of the Holy Roman emperor Charles VI – topped Bonhams’ Fine European Ceramics sale in London on December 6.

A table designed by a teenaged Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-52) for Windsor Castle sold for £23,500 (plus 21% buyer’s premium) at Gorringe’s of Lewes on December 4.

Dutch and Flemish art also dominated takings at Sotheby's in New Bond Street on December 5. The category was 90% sold and netted the lion’s share of the sale at £24.6m (with premium), against hopes of £16.8m-23.7m.

The bronze pieces produced by Rene Lalique are perhaps less well-known than the master’s jewellery and glass but seldom so under-rated that they are consigned to the dustbin, as was the case with this c.1910 hand mirror, below.

“What’s the death on this snuff mull?” asks Tom Hurst, a dealer in African and Oceanic art attending Newark to buy for his online shop and in preparation for his first stand at Tribal Art London in 2019.

On the market for the first time in at least 60 years, and in some cases for more than a century, a small collection of 17th and 18th century silver accounted for a fraction of the lots but 20% of the total at the two-day winter sale at Canterbury Auction Galleries (24% buyer’s premium).

Russian literary firsts and related manuscripts were the focus of one of the many major sales held in the UK, Europe and the US at the year’s end.

An Adventure with Colman’s Mustard by British painter Arthur Wardle (1864-1949), shown below, is among the pictures on offer at Richard Green gallery’s 50 Paintings Under £50,000.