UK

With several months to go before the next edition of The Art & Antiques Fair Olympia opens, fair director Mary Claire Boyd says that 2018’s event will feature a different format from past years and anticipates around 30,000 visitors to attend the revamped event.

This late 19th century ‘natural history’ specimen purports to be the mummified body of a creature that was half mammal and half fish.

As with the overall market, Dutch furniture is much less popular than it once was and the 18th century walnut, floral marquetry and ivory-inlaid bombé bureau cabinet, below, had a couple of condition problems for bidders at Andrew Smith (19% buyer’s premium).

This oil painting of the RMS Queen Mary, below, by marine painter William McDowell (1888-1950) was taken to a multi-estimate £12,000 at Surrey saleroom John Nicholson’s (24% buyer’s premium).

Look around at any edition of the Decorative Antiques and Textiles Fair and there will be dealers hastily rehanging and restocking empty spaces on their stands.

Silver dealer Alastair Dickenson had a blast from the past when he flicked through the pages of ATG recently.

Outsold, predictably enough, by an 18th-19th century Chinese vase, two late 19th century Persian moulded pottery tiles were the eye-catchers among a buoyant Asian works of art section at Billingshurst auction house Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium).

Specialists who relaunched North Yorkshire auction house generate old-school optimism.

Private material sourced from old estates helped Gloucestershire saleroom Chorley’s (20% buyer’s premium) get the year off to a positive start.

“The selling price was really encouraging,” said Chichester auctioneer Peter Parker after an 18th century walnut chest made £5800, “but it just emphasises how polarised the market is between the top end and the rest.”

Three 19th century porcelain figures from a Peoples of Russia series consigned to Lincoln auction house Golden Young & Mawer (20% buyer’s premium) by a local vendor attracted interest from the US to Russia.

Further discoveries from recent New York and London auctions including polar rarities.

A very modestly estimated job lot of 25 or so books offered in a recent West Country auction went on to sell for £6500 – but what got some bidders excited?

The Specialist Glass Fair, founded in 1991 by Patricia Hier and run for 16 years by Paul Bishop, will be held on Sunday, February 25.

“We are always being asked about running our art fairs in Surrey,” said Deborah James, director with Sarah McAllister of Contemporary Art Fairs.

Tony Haynes of Haynes Fine Art is preparing to show a room-set from the collection of Vivien Leigh at his London gallery next month – but not to sell it.

Children’s author Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) and Indian activist Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) don’t seem to have much in common. At separate auctions held later this month, however, both will have correspondence appearing on the market for the first time.

Tim Wilkes, a leading expert in Islamic coinage, has joined the coin department at London auction house Dix Noonan Webb.

The great Hungarian love affair with Zsolnay Pec ceramics goes on, most recently witnessed in the East Sussex rooms of Burstow & Hewett (15% buyer’s premium) when 27 lots were offered.

Chiswick Auctions (25/12% buyer’s premium) has held its first dedicated Old Masters sale, capitalising on the void left by Christie’s South Kensington’s closure last year.