UK

Tom Edwards is director of Abbott and Holder, a picture dealer and conservator established in 1936. The gallery is in London’s Museum Street across from the British Museum, and specialises in British watercolours, drawings, prints and oil paintings.

Topping a recent sale at Boulton & Cooper in Malton, near York was this unusual Georgian miniature elbow chair with shell-carved knees and cresting rail.

George Orwell is the focus of a first look at a November 7 Sotheby’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale of books from The Library of an English Bibliophile, the seventh in that series to have been held since 2010. Orwell’s books made a significant contribution to the overall total.

During the 17th century, European craftsmen were captivated by lacquer ware imported from Asia.

Before Natalie Smith opened the Woodbridge Antiques Centre 10 years ago in the pretty Suffolk town, she told ATG that she was given a great piece of advice: never compromise on quality and presentation.

Sometimes described as the wireless which saved Ekco, the radical Bakelite circular Model AD65 radio designed by Wells Coates in the 1933 sold in its tens of thousands. It restored the fortunes of the Essex factory after a disastrous fire in 1932.

During the 1950s a revival in UK printmaking took root. As dedicated print studios were set up, etching, lithography and screenprinting flourished, and in the 1960s, as critics celebrated the ‘rebirth’ of the print, Marlborough Fine Art entered the print publishing market.

If, as generally accepted, the tri-annual fine art sales at Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) can be regarded as something of a barometer of the middle market, the outlook following the autumn sale on November 18 appears rather more steady than the Brexit nervousness talked about elsewhere in the economy.

Founded three years ago, the Whitchurch, Shropshire, firm of Trevanion & Dean (19% buyer’s premium) enjoyed its best sale so far when the 950 lots, ranging from Renaissance art to contemporary glass, totalled £250,000 on November 18.

The sluggish area of Victorian genre painting provided Brightwells (20% buyer’s premium) with one of its top-sellers at the November 8-9 sale in Leominster.

A collection of paintings on show at contemporary art gallery Daniel Raphael offers a glimpse into the life of a well-known dealer.