UK

OUTSTANDING single pieces may have been fairly thin on the ground in recent months at Mallams (15% buyer's premium), but a steady take-up of lots throughout the year, coupled with an increase in the volume of consignments and number of sales, meant that the Oxfordshire group as a whole posted a 24 per cent increase in turnover for the year ending March 2004.

BILLED as a regular Victorian sale, the main attractions of Abbots Auction Rooms' (10% buyer's premium) March 29 sale were in a 129-lot specialist decorative arts section – in particular two pieces of René Lalique glass.

OFFERED at Edinburgh’s Royal College of Surgeons, a 169-lot section of Scottish provincial silver provided many of the highlights at Thomson Roddick & Medcalf’s (15% buyer's premium) March 29 sale.

RIGHT: the faience wares decorated by Louis Kramer for Burmantofts between 1887 and 1890 are among the most coveted productions of the Yorkshire factory. So there was lots of interest among academics, collectors and dealers prior to the May 8 sale at Fieldings of Stourbridge in this fully signed 18in (46cm) diameter charger.

A Prince’s Passion: The Life of the Royal Pavilion by Jessica Rutherford, published by the Royal Pavilion, Libraries & Museums. ISBN 0948723548 £14.99hb and available only from the Royal Pavilion shop in Brighton on 01273 292792. THIS is a delicious new history of Brighton’s Royal Pavilion, a monument of staggering self-indulgence built by George IV, the first son of the 15 children born to King George III and Queen Charlotte.

IF the hallmark of the perfect evening is the correct blend of food, wine, company and entertainment, now is the time to book tickets for the the RICS Grand Summer Dinner, scheduled for June 30.

BIRMINGHAM auctioneers Biddle & Webb (15% buyer’s premium) have been holding regular decorative arts sales for some years now. Generally 20th century ceramics top the sales list and this was again the case at the April 16 sale when two 13in (33cm) examples of Drunken Bricklayer vases designed by Geoffrey Baxter for the Whitefriars pottery were major stars.

A travel sale held by Christie’s South Kensington on April 29 was a mix of books, prints and pictures and seen here are two items from a section of that sale devoted to the Alpine regions.

SOMETIMES the significance of important commemorative pieces, which must have been so obvious at the time of their manufacture, remains something of a mystery to modern day collectors.

MOST of us are familiar with the designs Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden and Keith Murray produced for Wedgwood, but how many have heard of Norman Makinson?

KEYS (10% buyer's premium) of Aylsham maintain the format of mammoth offerings – 1556 lots offered over two days (April 20-21) in this case – and, although only 60 per cent of them got away, there was plenty of material for budget-conscious collectors of such favourites as Royal Doulton character jugs and figures as well as Beswick Beatrix Potter and animal models.

THE Earls Court and Olympia exhibition complexes are now under new ownership following a £245m deal which was completed last week.

Pictured right is a Fokker cylinder from a WWI German triplane that made £3600 at Bonhams Oxford (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale of arms and militaria on April 13.

LIKE a number of provincial houses, Surrey auctioneers Hamptons (15% buyer's premium) have adjusted to the increasingly polarised and selective buyers’ market by cherry-picking the most commercial consignments for their triannual fine sales.

THE quality-guaranteeing stamp of London cabinet-makers and retailers Edwards & Roberts was the key to the top seller at the 890-lot March 25-26 sale at Scarborough Perry Fine Arts (15% buyer's premium) that totalled £89,000.

TO mount six major selling exhibitions in the space of eight years of paintings by iconic British 20th century artist L.S. Lowry (1887-1976) is, by any standards, impressive. Nonetheless, this is exactly what New Bond Street dealer Richard Green has done. His latest Lowry showcase opens this Wednesday, May 19.

ATTENDANCE figures of 4243 at The 9th Annual Chelsea Art Fair, a Caroline Penman event at Chelsea Old Town Hall, were slightly up on last year, as were items sold (435), with many of the 45 exhibitors reporting reasonable sales.

THERE were few exceptional entries at McTear's (15% buyer's premium) March 19 sale but take-up was steady with 88 per cent of the 473 lots getting away.

Illustrated right is part of a group of fragmentary Greek and Coptic papyri, dating from the 4th-9th century AD and comprising mainly Coptic accounts, lists of names, literary fragments and two Greek biblical extracts, together with three narrow linen bandages inscribed in ink in late hieratic with spells from the Book of the Dead, c.3rd-1st century BC – offered as a single lot in a Christie’s antiquities sale, of April 27.

A 1937 FIRST edition of The Hobbit was always likely to be the big story in the April 14 books and collectables sale held by David Lay of Penzance. In a jacket with some chips and losses, notably towards the spine ends, and showing an ink correction to the mis-spelt version of Charles Dodgson’s name on the back flap, it duly sold at £10,500.