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“Marvellously dotty” was how Peyton Skipwith of The Fine Art Society chose to describe this 14 by 12in (36 x 30cm) oil on panel by Rex Whistler (1905-1944). Entitled Miss Muffet, the panel depicts the moment when, sat upon her tuffet eating her curds and wey, a spider sits down beside the well-known nursery rhyme character.

Over the last 10 to 15 years, the market has undergone a slow but steady shift towards 20th century painting in particular the Post-War abstraction of the St Ives school whose geometric shapes and pure blocks of colour are wholly in tune with contemporary tastes.

20th Century Jewellery: the Complete Sourcebook by John Peacock, published by Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0500510830. £24.95hb

Glittering personalities from the world of arts, they were the toast of Paris in the late 1960s. Capote and Sagan, Karajan and Nureyev, Callas and Saint-Laurent – their presence at soirées was coveted by the self-regarding hostesses across town, but they all paid homage to the ultimate hostess trolley when they arrived for dinner at 10 rue de Dragon.

The firm of Wright & Mansfield (1860-86) are often cited as the instigators of the Georgian Revival and, unlike many of their contemporaries who produced Victorian pastiches of earlier styles, are renowned for their craftsmanship, using high quality materials for accurate recreations of the Adam and Sheraton style – often difficult to distinguish from the 18th century originals.

A Birmingham man who gave up a career as a local government officer to devote himself to clockmaking has won a £4000 scholarship to study antique clock restoration.

Listings on eBay can sometimes be prone to hyperbole but when a seller from Ontario, Canada described this remarkable object as “definitely one of the finest sticking tommy candlesticks ever made” few enthusiasts of antique mining collectables could have argued.