London

Works by Modern British artists dominated the latest series of Modern and Contemporary art auctions in London.

The Oscar Wilde Collection formed over 60 years by bibliophile and former dealer in Oriental antiques Jeremy Mason prompted collectors to come out in force and was 100% sold at Bonhams (28/27% buyer’s premium) in Knightsbridge.

Second CADA Fair held in the capital also acts as a advert for the region

Medals expert familiar to millions through the Antiques Roadshow chats about his latest book telling a very personal story.

A medal with nine clasps from a soldier who was wounded in the head and twice in the thigh during the Peninsular War stood out in a recent sale held by Stanley Gibbons Baldwin’s (23% buyer’s premium).

London numismatic auction house Morton & Eden (23% buyer’s premium) sold a silver plaquette by the great Dutch silversmith Paulus van Vianen (1570-1613) for £130,000 at a recent sale.

Latest result for a ‘not in the face of the enemy’ award underlines how such honours have become a popular collecting field

If you look closely at both Lady Butler and Alphonse de Neuville’s paintings of what is probably the most famous British colonial action of the 19th century – Rorke’s Drift – you can pick out a man with a long, thick red beard wearing a blue tunic.

Despite the brief cataloguing of lot 129 in the Ellis Willis & Beckett (21.5% buyer’s premium) sale, the £4200 hammer price on February 17 indicated that bidders had fought it out for something special.

With the recent retirement of Allard Schierenberg and Jeanne van Bruggen, the remaining stock of Dutch dealership Antiquariaat Junk will be sold at auction.

Sale of more than 300 works amassed by former journalist for The Times attracts a wide range of interest