Sotheby's

Uncut and in near pristine condition, an exceptional first-state copy of TS Eliot’s poem The Waste Land was the top lot and also a recordbreaker at a Sotheby’s New York (26/20/13.9%% buyer’s premium) online sale.

Sotheby’s New York is selling the Ricky Jay collection on October 27-28.

Consigned by Frieda Hughes, who was not yet three years old when her mother took her own life, a collection of Sylvia Plath’s letters to Ted Hughes was sold by Sotheby’s (26/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) in a timed online auction.

This late 16th or early 17th century portrait depicts the Hurrem Sultan Roxelana (1502-58), the legendary wife of the longest reigning Ottoman Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (r.1520- 66). She became the most powerful and influential woman in Ottoman history.

A group of Richmal Crompton’s Just William books that had an appealing family provenance were offered without reserve at Sotheby’s (26/20/13.9% buyer’s premium).

Every lot of a collection of Meissen porcelain, restituted earlier this year to the heirs of Dr Franz Oppenheimer, was sold in a recent US sale.

To mark the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s death, Sotheby’s is holding an auction from September 15-22 in Paris titled Les Arts sous Influence: Napoléon.

This rare Qianlong mark and period gold-ground famille-rose five-piece altar garniture (wu gong) carries an estimate of $600,000-800,000 at Sotheby’s on September 21.

“The initial appeal of an object is always visual, and that is where the journey begins; research follows, and one is taken across the culture and geographical area which are both influencing forces on any work of art.”

On September 14 Sotheby’s New York will be offering a select auction of early Meissen porcelain that includes pieces created for the collections of Augustus the Strong, who founded the famous factory.

Maker, movement, case decoration, provenance, rarity and original condition are the factors that combine to create value in the clock market. Here Richard Fox discusses some of the best examples recently sold at auction with the views of specialists at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Bonhams