Sotheby's

“It was one of those eureka moments,” said Rosemary Scott, Chinese ceramics specialist at Christie’s. “My colleague Jeremy Morgan was on a perfectly normal valuation visit when he walked into the drawing room and there, on the mantelpiece, he saw these vases. He couldn’t believe his eyes.”

Regarded by many as Gustav Mahler’s greatest song for voice and orchestra, ‘Ich bin der Weit abhanden gekommen’ was just one of many first-class performances featured in a 53-lot music sale conducted by Sotheby’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on May 23.

By definition ruyi sceptres are highly auspicious objects, favoured for their shape and ornamentation which together represent the propitious expression ‘as you wish’.

Many of the most famous artists and designers of the Art Deco era were employed to decorate the interiors of the luxury liner SS Normandie, a virtual floating palace to that most glamorous of inter-war design movements.

Even in the days of online catalogues, internet bidding and timed sales, the importance of bricks and mortar premises for an auction house can hardly be overstated.

The flagship auctions of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art in New York last week showed a recovery after a difficult 2016.

Finely bound sets featured in the high spots ofa third Sotheby’s New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale of modern literature from the Maurice Neville library held on April 25.

Early Dutch discoveries in Australia and those made in Tasmania and New Zealand on Abel Tasman’s first voyage are outlined in a 1659 wall-map by the Amsterdam cartographer Joan Blaeu (1596-1673).

Satellite events and specialist photography sales are riding on the coattails of Photo London (May 18-21) this spring, coinciding with the fair’s four-day run at Somerset House.

Inscriptions and/or dates add a premium in many classes of ceramics but especially so in delftware. Some afficionados such as the late Syd Levethan made this a particular goal for their collecting.