UK

The landlord behind the redevelopment of Cork Street in Mayfair is planning a clutch of new gallery openings and art events as building work comes to an end.

‘Wally’ birds are among the most coveted of all pieces made by the famous Martin Brothers.

The Asian art sale at Chiswick confirmed that many of the better pieces of Chinese art are now well beyond the budget of the average western collector.

Widely exported during the Meiji period to a Western market newly awake to the skills of Japanese craftsmen, okimono now often appear at provincial salerooms.

A likely candidate as highlight of the year for Exeter auction house Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (21% buyer’s premium) will be the £305,000 Hans Coper vase (ATG last week, No 2332).

Two stand-out collections containing Old Master and traditional British works on paper were offered within 24 hours of each other in Oxfordshire.

London saleroom Chiswick Auctions has secured four significant pieces of European and British sculpture not seen on the market for at least a generation.

On a lesser scale than the exceptional £35,000 George II chairs at Holloway’s sale, but standing out from the general run of brown furniture, were other encouraging results across the country in February.

A small soapstone figure of a grinning, reclining Buddha stole the show at Thomas Watson (24% buyer’s premium) of Darlington when it smashed its estimate of £80-120 to sell for £16,500.

Flash from the past at the Diss rooms of TW Gaze (18% buyer’s premium).

Dwarfed as they were by the £440,000 oil of St John the Evangelist (see ATG last week, No 2332), a number of other lots helped to make Holloway’s (20% buyer’s premium) first major sale of the year in Banbury on February 27 an event to remember.

This 23in x 2ft 7in (59 x 80cm) oil on canvas is attributed to Blanche Hoschedé-Monet (1865-1947), the step-daughter and daughter-in-law of Claude Monet.

Commander John Morton Lee OBE RN (retd.), who had a long career in the Royal Navy before turning his passion for watercolours into a dealer business, died peacefully on February 26 after a brief illness, aged 88.

A painting by the obscure Welsh artist James Dickson Innes (1887-1914) generated keen bidding at Essex saleroom Stacey’s (24% buyer’s premium) on February 26.

Ephemera Society member Robertino Poposki has been awarded the silver prize in the ephemera class at the Spring Stampex 2018, organised by the Association of British Philatelic Societies.

Stephen Walters is a maritime expert who has acted as a consultant to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich – the largest task being to design and part-curate the William Bligh bicentenary exhibition in 1989.

A picture by Bloomsbury Group painter Roger Fry (1886-1934) drew strong bidding at Holloway’s in Banbury.

The run of recent six-figure auction sums in the English regions now includes Cheffins posting a house record in Cambridge.

With Bonhams the only one of the ‘big three’ in this market, other salerooms carve out a role...