UK

Dealer on a mission to establish such works alongside more ‘serious’ collecting fields

As the market evolves, auction rooms will inevitably come and go. But few will leave their mark like Christie’s South Kensington.

Much will depend on what the plan is for King Street and for the firm’s online-only sales (a growing but small fragment of the Christie’s business totalling £49.8m last year).

The engraved inscription to this gold box reads: A Common Council holden in the Chamber of the Guildhall of the City of London on Thursday the 7th day of April 1864 resolved that the honorary freedom of this city be presented to General Giuseppe Garibaldi on the occasion of his visit to this country as a tribute of respect to the most generous, brave and disinterested of patriots.

Estimated at £1500-2000, this rare English delft dish sold for £20,000 (plus 22.5% buyer’s premium) at Cheffins in Cambridge on March 8.

This 7 x 4in (18 x 11cm) enamel plaque in a silvered frame (right) by Francis Arthur Edwardes is the work of the Duchess of Sutherland Cripples Guild – the metalware workshop set up to aid and educate the children of the Potteries.

Attracting new and younger buyers is the thinking behind Tennants’ (18.5% buyer’s premium) modern and contemporary art sales. Held three times a year, the auctions offer art by a range of painters and sculptors at affordable levels to encourage new buyers into the market, while also appealing to established collectors.

Tennants’ (20/18.5/17.5% buyer’s premium) sale of Scientific and Musical Instruments, Cameras and Tools on February 17 included a rare brass altazimuth theodolite, signed by London instrument makers Heath and Wing. Estimated at just £300-400, it sold in its original box together with wooden tripod at £10,000.

Owing to today’s minimalist taste, Continental views of 19th century ports are not an easy sell. This pair of canvases proved otherwise when they topped Thomson Roddick’s (15% buyer’s premium) March 18 sale in Carlisle, Cumbria.

Highly unusual, not to say confusing, but mathematically correct is the view of the world as seen in this untitled map of 1640 that made £4500 in a Dominic Winter (19.5% buyer’s premium) sale of March 1.