London

When Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863), leading artist of the French Romantic school, died in 1863, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts commissioned a bust to commemorate the painter and embody his genius.

On July 2 Sotheby’s will hold the first of a four-part series of sales to disperse an important collection of clocks and pocket watches.

During an expedition to the wreck of the Titanic in 1996, a marine chronometer made by JW Ray, Liverpool, was recovered and brought ashore.

Kensington Church Street clock dealer Howard Walwyn will offer this previously unknown Thomas Tompion walnut and mulberry longcase at the Masterpiece fair in London.

A Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of May 30 ran to well over 540 lots in all, but it was very early in proceedings that a much, much higher than predicted bid of £26,000 was made on an 1853, presentation first of 'Palm Trees of the Amazon and their uses.

Pimlico Road antiques dealer Humphrey-Carrasco has left the street after a quarter of a century.

At the PBFA London Antiquarian Book Fair, from June 6-7 at Ibis London in Earls Court, Rainford & Parris brings a collection of seven children’s books by Penelope Lively.

Over in Kensington Gore’s Royal Geographical Society, The London Map Fair includes an astronomical highlight to mark the 50th anniversary of the first moonwalk. The map, signed and inscribed by Buzz Aldrin, shows the lunar landing site, and is offered by The Map House for £7500.

Spotlight on some of the items coming up at the four book fairs all running in the same week.

Headline stratospheric results should not put collectors off, as a London auction underlines.

A pair of large c.1760 Chelsea ovoid vases made after a drawing by English architect and furniture designer William Kent (1685-1748), is on offer at Albert Amor this month.