Lyon & Turnbull

James Ware (1859-1913), a merchant navy captain, turned to missionary work following his arrival in Shanghai.

An early illustration by the ‘Glasgow Girl’ Jessie Marion King (1875-1949) emerged as one of the high points of a Decorative Arts: Design from 1860 sale at Edinburgh saleroom Lyon & Turnbull (25/20% buyer’s premium) on April 3.

Something of a roll call for the great and good across the British 19th-20th century arts scene, Lyon & Turnbull’s (25% buyer’s premium) Decorative Arts: Design Since 1860 sale included such names as George Washington Jack, Sir Alfred Gilbert, Christopher Dresser, William de Morgan and Robert Bartlett.

Seemingly, whatever fashion website or Instagram influencer you choose, the brooch is this season’s ‘on-trend’ accessory. One might argue that in the trade, demand for good period examples of this ‘forgotten’ or ‘old fashioned’ item of jewellery has never really gone away.

Lyon & Turnbull’s (25% buyer’s premium) inaugural Modern Made auction at the Mall Galleries in London received plenty of encouraging noises from the dealing and collecting community as it posted a total of £1m (including premium).

The financial highlight at Lyon & Turnbull’s (25% buyer’s premium) inaugural Modern Made auction at the Mall Galleries in London was provided by an auction record for Malaysian Modernist painter and poet Abdul Latiff Mohidin (b.1938).

The inaugural Modern Made auction held by Lyon & Turnbull at the Mall Galleries in London last week recorded a hammer total of £800,000 (close to £1m including premium).

Pouring wine at the table from a standardised machine-made bottle is a relatively new custom. For centuries before the Victorian era, wine was typically bought and stored in the barrel and decanted into bottles or jugs only before use at the table.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales under £2000, including a work by Scottish painter John Maxwell.

Some areas of the secondary pictures market march to their own beat, appearing to defy the usual forces that determine value. Ancestral paintings are such a category.

Underlined by a £65,000 bid for a table cabinet, the attraction of Indo-Portuguese furniture – that combines familiar European forms with the exotic lure of the East – is as strong today as it was in centuries past.

Some buyers regard sales of dealers’ stock as a minus on the grounds that the lots have been ‘seen’. Others view them as a plus, reckoning the material has already been the choice of an expert.

Lyon & Turnbull is holding an auction of Modern & Contemporary art, sculpture and design at The Mall Galleries in London on March 27 under the title Modern Made.

A small group of lots in a recent Edinburgh sale were once part of the library of the late 5th Earl of Lovelace at Torridon House.