London

Our weekly selection from salerooms.

Organisers of the long-running Cotswolds Art & Antique Dealers Association Fair have hailed changes to its date and venue as offering a “wonderful” setting and the chance to expand the event’s client base.

Code locked in a briefcase for two decades, a finely preserved, 1997 first issue of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was finally released this summer after being delivered by its Lancashire owners into the hands of a Derbyshire saleroom.

The Lyon & Turnbull Modern Made sale in London on November 14 includes an archive of material relating to Porthia Prints, the company established by St Ives artist Denis Mitchell and his brother in the 1950s.

A 1547 translation into Arabic of Euclid’s Elementa Geometrica sold for £17,000 as part of an October 23 sale of Islamic and Near Eastern works on paper at Bloomsbury Auctions (25/12% buyer’s premium) on October 22,

Thirty of the top textiles and tribal art dealers will be exhibiting at the 'London Antique Textiles & Tribal Art Fair' at the Hilton Olympia in Kensington High Street on Sunday, November 10.

Dealer marks 25 years on Kensington Church Street with an exhibition of English big names

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Venerable London rare book dealership Bernard Quaritch, established in 1847, has recently moved from Mayfair to Holborn. Here ATG talks to two members of the firm, Andrea Mazzocchi and Donovan Rees, about its new location and some wider trends in the book trade

Pictured below is one of the 26 views, after Coke Smyth, that form a first edition copy of John Frederick Lewis’ 'Illustrations of Constantinople, Made During a Residence in that City &c., in the Years 1835-6'.

Just imagine: you have been through the horrors of the Battle of Waterloo in a regiment which suffered 217 casualties out of 396, and were wounded yourself, and then your career is ended by… a wheelbarrow.

Estimated at £10,000-15,000 in a Forum Auctions sale of November 21 is a French indenture agreement of 1421 with a certain added English appeal.

A Great War bronze memorial plaque – the ‘Death Penny’ – awarded to Violet Porter, Women’s Royal Air Force, is estimated at £4000- 5000 in the Spink Orders, Medals and Decorations auction in London on November 27-28.

This newly discovered ledger, dated August 18, 1660, to March 16, 1661, was kept in person by Edward Backwell while acting as paymaster to both the Excise and the House of Commons. It carries an estimate of £20,000-40,000 at Bonhams’ Fine Books and Manuscripts sale in Knightsbridge on December 4.

Chinese barber’s bowl is a stand-out item at event now running in a revamped format.

The ABA Chelsea Rare Book Fair is one of two major London events held annually by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association.

It’s a simple message but a powerful one. The words Welcome Home are stamped on the front of a rare first World War tribute medal to J Day (believed to be John Day) issued by the Working Men’s Club for the Yorkshire village of Heckmondwike.

Nelson’s naval heroics earned him many fans – and among the many souvenirs they bought to mark his greatness were fans of the cooling variety.

The ‘Forlorn Hope’ was well named: a band of soldiers, often volunteers, chosen to take the lead part in a military operation, such as an assault on a defended position, where the risk of casualties is high. Its usage was especially common in accounts of the Peninsular War (1808-14).