Auctioneers

Estimated at £200,000-300,000, the 'Hours of Isabella d’Este' sold at £340,000 (plus buyer’s premium) at Bloomsbury Auctions’ sale of Western and Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures on July 10.

Asian Art in London, the event that promotes London as the centre of the global Asian art trade, has increased the number of its auction house participants for the 21st edition (November 1-10).

While the big-money lots often steal the headlines, much of the antiquities market remains affordable.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Bonhams’ (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) main summer sale of European ceramics took place at its Bond Street rooms on July 5. On offer were 245 lots which raised a hammer total of just under £600,000, with a 62% take-up.

A collection of more than 400 corkscrews assembled over 40 years by an “old-school connoisseur” is to be auctioned at Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes.

The original drawing of the map of Winnie-the-Pooh’s 'Hundred Acre Wood' sold for £350,000 (plus 25/20/12% buyer’s premium) at Sotheby’s sale of English Literature, History, Science, Children’s Books and Illustration on July 9-10.

An eclectic array of modern art stood out at the Roseberys London (23% buyer’s premium) sale of 20th century art and design.

A copy of the posthumously published, 1633 first edition of John Donne’s Poems in a neatly rebacked but contemporary sheep binding is a desirable volume in itself.

The family of the late Paul Whitfield are holding an event in London on the evening of September 26 to celebrate his life. Contact paulwhitfieldmemorial@gmail.com for details.

Celebrating 10 years of sales at Sworders’ (23% buyer’s premium) custom-built auction house (the firm has actually been going since 1782), chairman Guy Schooling was in a justifiably buoyant mood.

More than £35,000 worth of Modern British art from a single-owner collection sold at Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium) in Winchester on June 27-28.

There were two 1997, first-impression copies of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in the June 21 sale held by Bonhams.

In terms of lot numbers, the major single contribution to Sworders’ anniversary sale (see main Auction Reports this edition) on June 19-20 was the estate of the late Annabelle Comery, an inveterate and wealthy collector who had lived on Alderney in the Channel Islands.

A still-life by Scottish Colourist George Leslie Hunter (1877-1931) not seen on the market for nearly half a century took £72,000 at Hansons (20% buyer’s premium).

One of a collection of ornithological and other natural history works from a country house library offered in an Edinburgh sale was a scarce, complete copy of a work that created a bitter fall-out between author and illustrator.

“My granny used to say, if you get stuck sell the French table,” the vendor told Harrogate auctioneer Elizabeth Pepper-Darling.

Found in a garden shed during a house clearance, this unrestored version of a classic c.1950 pedal car, below, attracted bidders online, on the phones and in the Wolverhampton rooms of Cuttlestones (17.5% buyer’s premium) on June 22.