UK

Medals and orders can be heavy things. So what better way to carry around your various hard-earned gongs than a one-size-fits-all miniature version of them all?

Operations behind enemy lines was the theme linking two special forces medals groups sold by London auction house Spink (20% buyer’s premium) on July 26.

So enamoured was Deco dealer Bill Jones of Style 1900 with the biannual Art Deco fairs held in the Great Hall at Eltham Palace in south London that he started his own: in Norfolk and East Sussex.

Considering there were only 150 men defending Rorke’s Drift against the Zulus, an impressive number of medals awarded after that epic 1879 encounter have come to auction recently.

Chiswick Auctions is to open its South Kensington showroom manned by a group of former Christie’s staff early next month.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period August 10-17, 2017. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

In our continuing series looking through the keyhole of ‘bricks and mortar’ shops, ATG talks to Tino Quaradeghini, who opened Regent Antiques in 1980.

The popular annual Antiques in the Street event held in the market town of Ashbourne is being revived and will support restoration of an 18th century building.

The highlight of Lyon & Turnbull’s sale of Scottish Silver & Applied Arts on August 16 was a Jacobite drinking glass with a difference.

In the days when loved ones in the armed forces would head abroad on service for up to several years, not knowing when or if they would return, ‘sweetheart’ brooches were a way of remembering them.

The British Museum’s big summer exhibition on Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai is over, but more art from the Land of the Rising Sun is in the offing (also see International Events, ATG No 2305).

The London Antique Arms Fair is usually a biannual event, but this year the organiser is rather busy – in November they are putting together the Passchendaele Salute 2017 at Fort Seclin near Lille, France.

A large oil painting offered at auction for first time depicts notorious figure from Charles II’s court and sells for five times top estimate.

A 1765 first of John L Cowley’s The theory of perspective demonstrated… sold for £17,000 by Christie’s (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on July 12 appears to be the only first edition recorded at auction.

Cavendish Morton became prominent as a landscape artist after the Second World War, focusing on pastoral and maritime themes, particularly in East Anglia, where he moved with his family in 1946.

The wide-ranging summer sale at Ilkley saleroom Hartleys (15% buyer’s premium) on June 14 left auctioneer Andrew Hartley in an upbeat mood. He could look back on “some high prices in most areas, and in particular the furniture section showed early signs of a market waking up for items right across the board”.

A 19th century oak snuff box offered at Lawrences (22% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne on July 11 was inset with copper and inscribed Made from the wreck of the Betsy Cains which brought King William to England 1688 and A.Reed Esq. Mayor 1827.

MADAM – Regarding ATG’s coverage of the threat of closure to the Poole Pottery Studio (ATG No 2304 and antiquestradegazette.com), I feel it is imperative that some element of the production stays in Poole.

Dealer Colnaghi is launching a foundation to bring Old Master paintings to a “21st century audience”.