Latest News Articles by Roland Arkell
Fitzwilliam Museum buys Coalport jug at Agricultural Society auction
25 July 2014A massive Coalport Feldspar porcelain jug painted with a study of Earl Spencer’s Durham Ox in a parkland setting has been bought by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.
Gold from Geordie shores: £150,000 collection emerges from Cullercoats bungalow
25 July 2014The centrepiece of Anderson & Garland’s sale in Westerhope, near Newcastle, last month was the eclectic Walton Temple collection.
Right time, right place this time around, say Sotheby’s and eBay
25 July 2014Twelve years after their first online collaboration, Sotheby’s and eBay have formed a second partnership to stream Sotheby’s sales worldwide.
Bidders fly to Hampshire to hear music box sing at £22,000
25 July 2014Selborne, Hampshire, auctioneer Hannams produced a YouTube video to promote the presence of this very early key-wind musical box by Nicole Frères in their inaugural sale.
Golden age pieces make their mark
23 July 2014A recent sale at Bamfords of Derby included two outstanding pieces of Chippendale period rococo furniture, both consigned by a local lady who had inherited them from her father.
Unique seat of learning belonging to agricultural pioneer
18 July 2014Born near Loughborough into a family of tenant farmers, Robert Bakewell (1725-95) is recognised as an important figure in the Agricultural Revolution – a pioneer of the grassland irrigation he saw while travelling in Europe and an innovator in the selective breeding of livestock.
A £2200 token of love – Cumbrian medallion sampler surfaces in Cheltenham
18 July 2014Among the most desirable of all needlework samplers are those associated with pupils at the Ackworth School, founded as a co-educational boarding school in 1779 by the Quaker physician John Fothergill and still thriving today.
Met Police wildlife unit joins ivory debate with appeal
16 July 2014In the wake of calls for the destruction of antique ivory, The Metropolitan Police Wildlife Crime Unit is asking Londoners to bring in ‘family heirlooms’ made from elephant ivory and other endangered species.
Antiques Roadshow reins in ivory coverage
16 July 2014The BBC’s Antiques Roadshow will show fewer ivory objects in future programmes, but has stopped short of banning the valuation of antique ivory on screen.
Maori artefacts top regional tribal gathering
11 July 2014Maori boat-shaped feather boxes – or ‘waka huia’ – are infrequent visitors to UK salerooms so it was unusual to see two examples sold in close proximity this summer.
Hitting the suite spot at £42,000
04 July 2014An Arts & Crafts dining room suite made by the prominent Manchester designer Edgar Wood has sold for £42,000 at Gardiner Houlgate of Corsham near Bath.
Tiffany tea caddy draws bidding at Hansons
04 July 2014Discovered at a regional valuation day held in Shropshire by Hansons of Etwall, this Tiffany and Co. silver and mixed-media tea caddy had been a wedding gift and had remained in the family of the vendor since the 1920s.
Steiff ‘Titanic’ teddy tops latest sales in a bear market
04 July 2014The story goes that Steiff black mohair bears were produced as mourning bears after the Titanic disaster in April 1912.
Roman life in clay at £9500
27 June 2014The Roman artist Bartolomeo Pinelli (1781-1835) is best known as a prolific engraver, selling to tourists his prints portraying the everyday life and costumes of characters encountered in and around the Piazza della Rotonda.
Bantry House contents to be sold on the premises
27 June 2014Lyon & Turnbull are to sell the contents of Bantry House, County Cork, one of the best-known historic houses in the Republic of Ireland.
A £25,000 record for Irish flatware?
27 June 2014Seventeenth century Dublin trefid spoons are extremely scarce. Last year a single rat-tailed example by Andrew Gregory, 1685, sold for €9000 at Adams of Dublin.
Recalling Belperron’s wartime travails as single-owner collection sells out
27 June 2014Despite countless offers to leave France, Suzanne Belperron (1900-83) remained in German-occupied Paris throughout the Second World War – a jewellery maker and a Resistance fighter.
New York to ban ivory and rhino horn sales
25 June 2014New York is a step closer to adopting new restrictions on ivory after the State Assembly passed the bill to bar nearly all sales of elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn.
Martin Brothers bird flies to record £75,000
20 June 2014Knocking others off their perch, Salisbury’s Woolley & Wallis improved upon their own auction record for Martin Brothers with the £75,000 sale of this bird jar to Gloucestershire British art pottery dealers AD Antiques.
English delftware remembering a difficult year for George II – and the Queen’s teeth
20 June 2014The year 1737 was something of an annus horribilis for George II.