UK

An exceptionally rare Western Zhou bronze, taken when the Summer Palace was sacked by British troops in 1860, has been discovered in a house in a Kent seaside town.

The UK's National Portrait Gallery (NPG) has funding in place for vernacular portraits ‘owned by ordinary people’. It is calling on the trade to help it acquire works for a new exhibition centred on identity before the era of painted portraiture.

Lyon & Turnbull has appointed Philip Smith, former head of modern & post-war art and design at Mallams, to the newly created role of associate director for modern art and design.

An American private collector bid £15,000 for a rare Clarice Cliff figure group at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury.

While many a hopeful vendor has to be told gently that great-great-grandpa’s pocket watch is worth little more than the melt price of the metal, a complication or major name – such as the signature Ch. Frodsham, London to the movement of this example, below – makes all the difference.

Considering retiring and selling up, the owner of a Cornish B&B owner consigned the George III, japanned chest on stand, below, to Honiton saleroom Chilcotts (19.5% buyer’s premium) to test the market.

Bac To Basic Antiques brings a special display of First World War commemorative pottery to this edition of the Antiques for Everyone fair.

Porcelain by Jacob Petit (1797-1868) is a scarce sight at provincial rooms.

Among Horace Hone’s (1756-1825) most renowned depictions was the 18th century actress Sarah Siddons.

Aldine press books of the early 16th century, mostly it seems in a good but much later full morocco or calf bindings, produced a number of the higher bids in a recent Yorkshire sale.

MADAM – I was open-mouthed in disbelief to see again opinion discussed as fact when the ivory issue was aired on national television (ATG No 2334).

MADAM – I did a double – no, triple – take when I read the article ‘First Doctor Who script up at auction’ in ATG No 2332.

“It’s not the age or pedigree – it’s the look of the piece.” The phrase became less a heresy and more a cliché during the latter years of the furniture boom of blessed memory, when the increasingly influential decorator trade was spending substantial sums on 19th and early 20th century reproductions.

The venerable Antiques for Everyone (AfE) fair is still open to change in its 33rd year. The next edition runs from April 5-8 at Birmingham’s NEC, hosting around 200 dealers who offer items to fit a variety of tastes, functions and wallets.