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Porcelain toys are the tiny versions of tablewares produced by ceramic factories alongside their standard size wares. The earliest 18th century examples, often less than an inch in height, were probably made to furnish dolls’ or baby houses, which were initially playthings for adults rather than children.

Pictured are two modern firsts, both in rather chipped jackets, from the book section of a September 7 sale held by Mallams of Oxford. P.G. Wodehouse’s Uncle Fred in Springtime of 1939 was sold for £100, while Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop of the previous year reached £210.

ISAAC WARE’S Complete Body of Architecture, a calf bound 1768 edition illustrated, or rather “adorned” with engraved plates of “...plans and elevations from original designs... in which are interspersed some designs of Inigo Jones”, was one of a small group of architectural books that brought most of the higher bids in this Bearne's sale on 21 August.

Themed series are all the rage in the salerooms these days. September 25-28 has been designated Travel Week by Christie’s King Street rooms and will be given over to a series of sales devoted to voyages, exploration and discovery.

Sotheby’s annual jaunt north of the border to Gleneagles is as traditional to the Scottish leg of the ‘Season’ as the Oban ball and the first flexing of the Duke of Edinburgh’s trigger finger on the moors above Balmoral.

Good stock furniture attracted bidders to the first of these Staffordshire August sales on 15 August at Richard Wintertons, the best being a George III mahogany sofa table.

FRANCE: New auction premises were inaugurated by Lelièvre-Maiche-Paris in Chartres, 55 miles south-west of Paris, at the start of September. Architect Philippe Redreau’s futuristic, hi-tech building, painted black to emphasize its sleek outlines, is situated in the suburb of Le Coudray, just off the Chartres rocade (ring-road) two miles south-west of the town centre.