News

This unrecorded, William Billingsley painted campana vase appeared at Woolley and Wallis’s sale in Salisbury on November 28, and not without great controversy.

It is not usually understood that the prophet Mohammed did not actually ban images. This came about some 60 years after his death. In very late AH77 (696AD) the then caliph instituted an epigraphic gold coinage: the dinar (cf. Latin: denarius).

Contemporary Decorative Arts, Sotheby’s selling showcase of work by European designers, has become a popular annual fixture in the auctioneers’ calendar.

Light sculpture is what noted potter Margaret O’Rorke calls her distinctive and novel work, which is on exhibition until December 21 at Galerie Besson, 15 Royal Arcade off Old Bond Street, London W1.

ITALY: Back on November 4, Semenzato (19 per cent buyer’s premium, including VAT) held a sale of furniture and works of art in Venice in which an 18th century Venetian painted chest of drawers, pictured right, produced the highest price of the day at Li160m (£52,460).

George Jones majolica continues to be extraordinarily popular with buyers, both trade and private. Some damage to a George Jones cheese dish and cover offered in Birmingham at Biddle & Webb saw it estimated at £300-500 so it came as rather a surprise when it soared above this.

A small part of the English trade’s history went under the hammer along with the last effects of Leicester dealer Ernest Galinksy at Warner Auctions sale on 31 October.