UK

An album of 35 photographs relating to the Alaskan ‘Gold Rush’ of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries sold for £1900 rather than the estimate of £50-70 in a recent North Yorkshire sale.

There was no shortage of desirable names among the 1370-lot Fine & Decorative three-day sale at Kingham & Orme (23% buyer’s premium), such as Charles Ashbee, Omar Ramsden, Lalique, Christopher Dresser and William de Morgan.

With supply generally exceeding demand for Spode services – such was their abundance on tables of the 19th century middle class – prices at auction remain modest.

Long unseen material from the country home of an ancient English family brought some estimate-demolishing five-figure bids at Morphets (17.5% buyer’s premium) including a genuine sleeper.

Although championed by Stanley Spencer and the poet and critic Herbert Read, Francis Plummer (1930-2019) is a name few will have heard of.

With just five of the 630 lots of toys and models failing to get away and an £80,000 total well above top hopes, Special Auctions Services’ Newbury sale was, said auctioneer Hugo Marsh, “just like the old days – even better”.

Two Italian Mannerist chalk drawings emerged as the top sellers in a section of Old Master drawings and prints at Cirencester saleroom Dominic Winter.

Paul Jenkins (1923-2012), an American Abstract artist and member of the New York School, was born in Kansas City. He worked at a ceramics factory in his youth, an experience that heavily influenced his tactile methods of painting.

Among the Antarctic lots in the Travel & Exploration sale at Bonhams, the outstanding result came for a group of three glass jugs with silver lids, rims and, in two cases, hanging labels marked 'Whiskey'.

Two alluring early-20th century British school portraits of attractive young women caught the eye in recent regional sales. Both modestly estimated, they brought similar four-figure sums.

Rare works in South Cerney sale document the formative years of the Bank of England

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

A c.1880 Doulton Lambeth stoneware tobacco jar and cover was one of the pleasant surprises at a recent David Duggleby (18.75% buyer’s premium) sale in Scarborough.

A valuation day in Tunbridge Wells led to the consignment of a late-16th century south German rosewood and bone gaming board at Catherine Southon.

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

The round of applause that broke out for fair organiser Matthew Adams at the Royal Horticultural Halls on Sunday, March 15 was loud and, exhibitors said, very well-earned.

Houstoun-Boswall consignment includes Robert Adam’s proposal for Scottish country house

Containing some 600 hand-coloured engraved plates, a set of Sowerby and De Carle’s 'The Mineral Conchology of Great Britain…' of 1812-29 was just another of the many attraction in a sale last month held by Lyon & Turnbull.

Susanne Schulz-Falster deals in rare books from Woodstock, Oxfordshire.