London

After months of lockdown, one’s home may no longer be feeling like one’s castle. However, that situation is easily remedied thanks to the Kensington Church Street Art & Antiques Dealers Association’s Virtual Summer Showcase, which takes ‘fit for royalty’ as its theme.

'Composition bleue' (1940-42), an oil by French artist Georges Folmer (1895-1977), is on offer at Waterhouse & Dodd’s online retrospective 'Il n’y a pas de hasard en Art'.

Turning heads at Bonhams Knightsbridge’s sale of Modern British art was a group of 22 pen and ink drawings by Cecil Beaton (1904-80) which formed part of the photographer’s 'The Book of Beauty' published in 1930.

Work on paper outperforms more traditional works at Bonhams Knightsbridge lockdown sale of Modern British art

It was not just the great and good of 18th century Europe and North America who commissioned the Thirteen Factories at Canton to embellish Chinese porcelain blanks with family armorials or subjects copied from prints.

'The Loyalists Alphabet, an Original Effusion' was one of an additional group of 55 lots from the Birmingham Assay Office collections (see main report in ATG No 2438) that was offered as part of one of the regular online sales held by Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium).

Welcome to the fifth annual Books, Maps & Prints supplement produced by Antiques Trade Gazette showcasing the world of rare books and works on paper, writes Rupert Powell. It is the third to feature Forum Auctions as the primary sponsor.

In keeping with the convention of the time, autograph leaves of serialised novels were nearly always destroyed as soon as they were set in type.

In 2017, this lost portrait miniature of a young Dickens emerged at an auction in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa where it sold together with some household goods for the equivalent of £27.

The migration to online sales that has occurred during the lockdown has brought about some noticeable changes to the art market. These include, not least, the profile of buyers at auctions.

This 3ft (91cm) high hard-sided 'tik', or Torah scroll container is representative of the type used in the Sephardic tradition.