UK

Firm local to The Traitors’ castle HQ says extra tourists help drive sales

Four saucers in the rare Copeland Spode R4332 pattern associated with RMS Titanic prompted fierce bidding at two regional salerooms in the space of a fortnight.

The minimum lot values beloved of auctioneers’ accountants have come more and more into play just at a time when areas of the ceramics market have softened.

Lowestoft Porcelain Auctions, founded by Russell Sprake in 1984 and continued since his death by his wife Zoe, is holding a single-factory sale on October 21.

While an unusual 17th century picture titled The Hares’ Revenge was the star of Woolley & Wallis’ (27/26% buyer’s premium) latest Old Masters, British & European Paintings sale when it made £50,000 (see ATG No 2761), a couple of scenic views of Greece also drew competition.

Four centuries of art will be shuffled out of chronological order in Echoes Across Time, an exhibition at Simon C Dickinson in Jermyn Street, presented by Kocerova Fine Art.

Two bones from the foot of a dodo, the huge flightless bird that went extinct in the Dutch colony of Mauritius c.1690, were offered in Sworders’ (25% buyer’s premium) most recent Out of the Ordinary sale.

Dealer and advisor Martyn Downer, a veteran of the temporary export bar process applied to culturally significant works of art or heritage items, says the system is no longer fit for purpose.

A civil war-era miniature by the Anglo-French painter David des Granges (1611-72) sold for £22,000 at Hawleys in Beverley, East Yorkshire, on September 26.

London saleroom Wimbledon Auctions has announced a series of expansion plans.

Mark Rowles Fine Art is a gallery in Powys, Wales, run by Mark and his daughter Michelle Rowles-Lloyd.

Previewed in this column in ATG No 2759, the Great Antiques Fair is a new high-end event that was held on September 26-27 at Larchfield, an historic estate in Lisburn, County Down.

Alex and Oli Khalil-Martin live in a 600-year-old home in Lavenham, Suffolk, known as The Crooked House.

The descendants of a Boer War soldier succeeded in buying a rare medal group at Kinghams (26% buyer’s premium) in Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, returning the awards to family ownership for the first time in 100 years.

A Victoria Cross that was awarded posthumously to a member of the Manchester Regiment who is buried in the same row as war poet Wilfred Owen is coming to auction in London.

Focus on one of the two London events that have been announced as October becomes a busy period