International

A mix of surprising and more predictable results emerged in the first round of Old Master auctions in Germany and Austria this autumn.

A Sino-Tibetan gilt-bronze of a serene Amitayus confounded modest expectations to sell for $690,000 (£518,000) at the Neal Auction Gallery in New Orleans.

When he was tired of his Paris apartment looking like an IKEA showroom and wanting to expand his interest in antiques, Nicolas Martin set out to investigate the trade.

A week before Fonsie Mealy’s William Butler Yeats sale, the auctioneers’ neighbours, kith and rivals Mealy’s (20% buyer’s premium) had a couple of eyecatchers in its November 8 sale at Castlecomer.

Among the many hundreds of services manufactured in Meissen, the Schwanenservice (Swan Service) is one of the most exclusive – a fact not lost on today’s collectors of 18th century German porcelain.

Harry Clarke worked for three years on his first major book illustration commission, an edition of the Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen commissioned by Harrap.

Modern designs are not yet booming in price and a mini-golden age remains something of a secret, but that could be about to change as the largest private collection of its kind goes on display in the US...

The material connected with William Butler Yeats in the family home of his son, the late Senator Michael, has proved as controversial – and profitable – as the great man’s writing itself.

The impact of the controversial 2016 cultural heritage bill has moved up the political agenda in Germany in the wake of the country’s recent elections.

Among the items on offer in the December 16 auction of traditional fine art, furniture, decorative items and jewellery to be held by Stair Galleries in Hudson, New York, will be this Aesthetic Movement ebonised and parcel-gilt pedestal standing.

"If it hadn't been for the Blue Boxes, there would have been no Apple. I'm 100% sure of that." So said Steve Jobs of the electronic devices that simulate operators by generating the tones used by a telephone operator’s dialling console, and were typically used from the 1950s by so-called ‘phone phreakers’ to avail themselves of free calls.

A Sioux Indian beaded knife sheath from the Battle of Little Bighorn could be the highlight of Skinner’s sale of American Indian and Ethnographic art to be held on December 2 in Boston.