UK

London has a new boutique auction house with the launch this month of Azca Auctions in Hammersmith, west London.

Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Bonhams are all undertaking rounds of redundancies.

Pair of rare and early French examples offered separately create a bidding frenzy despite condition issues

An autographed photograph of Charles Darwin (1809-82) described as “very scarce” by Hansons (26.5% buyer’s premium) sold for £8500.

More paintings on offer in Dorest saleroom from the Cornish ‘school’ show the market strength

The opening section of Duke’s latest Art & Design post 1880 sale was devoted to the ‘forgotten’ artist Kathleen Muriel Scale (1913-2006).

David Marshall runs Hammer and Hand Antiques, which focuses on Arts & Crafts and Art Nouveau works.

John Robertson, the new fairs secretary of the Ephemera Society, got into the world of collecting ephemera and antique photographs back in the 1980s “due to my interest in local Sussex postcards and topographical views showing social history subjects”.

The Alfred Jewel is a famous piece of Anglo-Saxon goldsmith craftmanship, a gold-mounted piece of rock crystal enamelled with a portrait of a man and the inscription translating as ‘Alfred ordered me to be made’.

Show held for the first time last year returns at same location and is fully booked

Coming up on June 30 is the annual Sunday Kempton organised by Sunbury Antiques’ Edward Cruttenden, whose bi-monthly market at Kempton Park Racecourse recently featured as one of just two “antiquing” destinations in Qantas’ in-house flight magazine on the Sydney to London route.

In dealer news this week we focus on a Modern art fair, a dealer offering a wartime map, the line up at 'PAD London' and the latest initiative at 'FAB Paris'.

An 18th century folio bible in mosaic binding was among the notable sales at the recent Firsts: London’s Rare Book Fair.

It was on March 1, 1849 that Nathaniel Cook, the editor of the Illustrated London News, registered the design that would provide the ancient and cosmopolitan game of chess with its first standardised set.

A gold and cameo ring offered with an estimate of just £200-300 at Derbyshire auction house Irita Marriott (plus 28.8% buyer’s premium inc VAT) and catalogued as 19th century caught the eye of a number of jewellery dealers and bidders from as far as Paris and the US.

“Siege notes are a niche but popular subsidiary of military banknote collecting,” says Andrew Pattison, head of the Banknotes Department at Noonans (24% buyer’s premium).