Latest News Articles by Roland Arkell
Pick of the week: Lucie Rie world record reflects a prime period of masterpiece work
10 August 2020The market for Lucie Rie (1902-95) reached a new high on July 30 when Phillips New York sold this 5½in (14cm) diameter footed bowl for $180,000 (£136,800).
Silver cup ‘rewarded to a loyal Jacobite’ offered jointly by auction house and dealer
10 August 2020Is this the silver cup given by Bonnie Prince Charlie to a trusted aide for his role in returning Jacobite gold to France? Auction house Spink and dealer Martyn Downer believe it is and are looking for a buyer at around £150,000.
Film producer buys Seacole bust for 101 times the estimate
10 August 2020A terracotta sculpture of Mary Seacole (1805-81) sparked fierce competition at Dominic Winter.
An Art Deco figure, a rare cocktail book and a Mod Brit watercolour are among the eight lots to watch at auction this week
10 August 2020With estimates from £250-12,000 here are eight previews of upcoming items this week.
Three pieces of wonderful Worcester highlight the work of a trio of factories
10 August 2020Pictured here are three good examples of Worcester hard-paste porcelain from the early decades of the 19th century – at which time there was a trio of factories operating in the city.
Sewing box takes Bleasdales’ top spot
10 August 2020Delayed for a month by the pandemic, the specialist sewing sale held as a timed online auction on thesaleroom.com at Bleasdales (20% buyer’s premium) of Warwick proved a profitable stitch in time. The sale, which covered the gamut of collectables, closed with only 16 of the 665 lots failing to get away.
Beat that: what a festival line-up
10 August 2020Although a smaller affair than the much better-known Isle of Wight festival of the same year, the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music, held on June 27-28, 1970, at the Shepton Mallet showground, boasted perhaps the greatest UK music festival line-up of all time.
Bust of British-Jamaican Crimean War heroine Mary Seacole sells for £101,000 at auction and heads to Nightingale Museum
04 August 2020A terracotta sculpture of Mary Seacole (1805-81), who nursed dying and wounded soldiers during the Crimean War, will go on display in the Florence Nightingale Museum after it was sold at auction last week.
The £260,000 joy of Qianlong’s hanging bottles
03 August 2020A pair of imperially inscribed Qianlong (1735-96) mark and period famille rose wall vases set a house record for Asian art at Roseberys.
China’s bountiful produce from a career diplomat
03 August 2020The recent Mallams (22.5% buyer’s premium) live online sale of Chinese, Japanese and Islamic art in Cheltenham included Chinese works on paper and textiles from a relative of Katherine Talati (1922-2015).
Knives out to Danish buyer
03 August 2020Two 19th century ‘prestige’ knives from southern Africa attracted unexpected levels of bidding at Grand Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) in Folkestone. Estimated at just £40-80 each, they made a combined £9200.
Sixties posters on a high
03 August 2020The artist John Hurford was a key figure in the British psychedelia movement of the late 1960s.
Mid-17th century sleeve vase among items bringing muscular bidding at Salisbury post-lockdown sale
03 August 2020It was during the so-called Transitional period, the era of protracted civil war that marked the transition from Ming to Qing, that the centuries-old system of court-sponsored porcelain manufacture at Jingdezhen collapsed.
Previews: salerooms ready for a bumper August
03 August 2020August is typically a fallow month for art and antiques – a time when holidays are taken in the wake of a busy June and July. However, given the exceptional circumstances, 2020 will be a little different.
Pick of the week: Lucie Rie record as footed bowl takes $180,000 at Phillips
31 July 2020The market for Lucie Rie (1902-95) reached a new high when Phillips New York sold this 5.5in (14cm) diameter footed bowl for $180,000 (£136,800) at its latest design auction.
Early English porcelain figures star in our pick of five auction highlights this week
31 July 2020ATG’s weekly selection of items that caught bidders’ eyes includes a pair of ‘dry edge’ English porcelain figures that sold for 50-times estimate.
A portrait by James Jebusa Shannon and an Old Master found in skip near Portobello Road are among five lots to watch at auction this week
27 July 2020With estimates from £300-12,000 here are five previews of upcoming items this week.
'The King’s Speech' cigarette case sells for over 10-times estimate at Woolley & Wallis
24 July 2020A royal presentation silver cigarette case given by George VI to his speech therapist Lionel Logue, the subject of the 2010 film 'The King’s Speech', sold for £61,000 at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury this week.
Pick of the week: British collector snaps up Dürer print for €430,000 in Berlin
20 July 2020A lifetime impression of The Fall of Man (Adam and Eve) – perhaps Albrecht Dürer’s (1471-1528) best-known engraving – has sold for a record €430,000 (£390,000) in Germany. The buyer was a British collector.
Picking over the bones of £78,000 skeleton clock bidding
20 July 2020This exhibition-quality skeleton clock, made by Anglo-German clockmaking firm Camerer Kuss & Co to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, sold for £78,000 at Bonhams last week.