Duke's

Creative examples featured in recent UK auctions show the influence of religion and culture on the Manchu rulers of the Qing

In 1888, in response to a tender issued by the War Office, Prof Archibald Barr and Dr William Stroud submitted an application for an optical range-finder patent to the Patents Office.

Ceramics by Hans Coper (1920-81) and Lucie Rie (1902-95) have been assimilated into the collecting sphere of Modern British art with spectacular effect.

A little-known theatrical portrait painted by Johan Zoffany (1733-1810) towards the end of his career sold for £330,000 at auction in Dorset.

This little-known theatrical portrait was painted in 1796 by Johan Zoffany (1733-1810) towards the end of his career.

The autumn season will bring a number of English Golden Age clocks by top makers to auction.

Bid to £16,000 in a sale held by Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) of Dorchester was a 1921 first of Agatha Christie’s The Mysterious House at Styles.

A ‘Jolly Roger’ or pirate flag that records the Second World War exploits of a British submarine flew once more in a militaria sale earlier this summer.

The watch market can be obsessed with brand names – and the best names do come with a price tag to match.

Among the 20th century works on paper generating demand at regional sales in the last few months was a Keith Vaughan (1912-77) study of a group of bathers.

A Victorian sapphire, diamond and pearl brooch-pendant was one of two pieces with Indian roots offered for sale at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium).

The Asian art sale at Duke’s of Dorchester, scheduled for May, has been moved back to June 15 to incorporate a significant late consignment.

Auction figures for firms outside London show a shake-up of the status quo

The highest single price posted in the regions during the autumn series of Asian art sales was the £380,000 bid at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) in Dorchester for a monumental Sino-Tibetan gilt bronze devotional figure of Tara broadly dated to the Qing period.

The outstanding jade offered in the regions in the October-December period was this pale celadon teapot and cover that came for sale at Duke’s in Dorchester on December 8 from a Dutch private collection where it had been since the 1980s.

Many of the unsung British heroes of both world wars served in the royal and merchant navies carrying and protecting supplies to Russia or the USSR.

Among the book lots offered as part of an October 7-8 sale at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) the earliest was a Burgundian ‘Hours of the Virgin’ manuscript.

In 2010 The National Gallery held the first exhibition of works by Frederick Cayley Robinson (1862-1927) in the UK for 30 years.

Emile Berliner (1851-1921), a German clerk in a Washington DC haberdashery, is credited with inventing both the first commercially successful disc record and the first machine to play it.