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THE strength of this Bearne’s (15/10% buyer's premium) March 2 & 3 Devon outing lay in the 72-lot furniture section, although the fairly routine ceramic selection was also notable for a high take-up by lot and some healthy prices. What turned out to be the two star furniture lots were given cautious catalogue entries and estimates which reflected a knowledge of the current wariness among specialists about the numbers of altered, or overly restored, pieces of furniture peppering the market.

A 100-LOT collection of Meissen, Derby and Cont-inental porcelain figures, together with some furniture and works of art from a local Thanet private vendor, formed the backbone of Canterbury Auction Galleries (15% buyer's premium) February 24 outing which attracted a large number of private buyers, many of whom secured the top ceramic lots.

EVERYONE is aware of how rich a thin stratum of Russians have become in the post-glasnost years. The buying power of Russia’s new rich was amply in evidence on March 23 at Bonhams (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) Bond Street when the spectacular 3ft 1in x 5ft 8 3/4in (94cm x 1.74m) canvas, Nero’s Torches, by Henryk Siemiradzki (1843-1902) sold at £260,000 at an otherwise fairly predictable 19th Century Paintings sale.

BOUGHT for a few pounds at a Surrey church bazaar within the last five years, this James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) pen and ink drawing, right, made a tidy profit for its vendor when it fetched a surprise £26,000 at Rosebery’s (15% buyer’s premium) Quarterly Select Auction in West Norwood, South East London.

PARIS auctioneer Jean-Claude Binoche has been given an eight-month suspended jail sentence, and fined €100,000, after a Paris court found him guilty of fraud.

WHILE Troika ceramics made up the first 150 lots at Burstow & Hewett’s (10% buyer's premium) March 17 sale, there was also more traditional fare on offer, such as this 9in (22cm) diameter pair of mid-18th century English (probably London) delft plates, right, each with a painted design of a cockerel and a flower in blue, green and orange.

A POPULAR breed, a popular artist, plenty of puppies, totally fresh to the market, a come-hither estimate... When it came to dog paintings, this signed Arthur Wardle (1864-1949) canvas of a long-haired Jack Russell terrier with her pups had pretty well everything going for it when it came under the hammer at Wintertons (15% buyer’s premium) of Lichfield on March, estimated at just £2000.

Since the time of Edward II, an ingot of gold weighing one pound has been part of the oblation at a coronation – presented by the monarch to the Archbishop of Canterbury and placed on the altar as instructed in the Liber Regalis and thus “fulfilling the commandment of Him who said ‘Thou shalt not appear empty in the sight of the Lord thy God’”.

AFTER more than 10 years of research by a specially convened group of international scholars, Sotheby’s have revealed to the world’s press what they describe as a “newly-acknowledged” work by Johannes Vermeer (1632-75).

DATES have been announced for the first collectors’ sales to be held at Sotheby’s Olympia by the company’s former in-house specialists, now working independently.

As the most prolific of the 18th century English porcelain-producing factories, there is plenty of scope when it comes to collecting Worcester porcelain. There are few collectors, however, who can match the determination of Jeanne and Milton Zorensky.

This large and important Martin Brothers bird, pictured right and dated 1894, is the main highlight of a diverse sale of ceramics, glass, works on paper, furniture, textiles and metalware, relating to the Arts and Crafts movement inspired by William Morris, to be held at Woolley & Wallis' Salisbury Salerooms on May 26.

WITH a style, as one writer has put it, “sweetly intensified to a point where the world is reduced to a world of gossamer”, Annie French (1872-1965) was a Glasgow School artist who took the Art Nouveau idiom of Beardsley and Burne-Jones to new decorative extremes.

WITH a name like the Old Picture Palace, the former cinema in Matlock that is the newly acquired saleroom of the Derby auctioneers Bamfords (15% buyer’s premium) should be the sort of venue where the more traditional end of the art market should feel at home.

Edward Tyson’s Orang-outang, sive homo sylvestris: Or, the anatomy of a pygmiecompared with that of a monkey, an ape, and a man... was the first work to demonstrate scientifically the structural relationships between man and anthropoid ape and one which had a powerful influence on subsequent thoughts on man’s place in nature – albeit the orang-outang on which his work was based was actually a young chimpanzee.

The hangar saleroom at Christie’s South Kensington was full to overflowing for the much-publicised sale of the Poole Pottery Museum collection and archive on March 31.

THE massive catalogue of Küncker of Osnabrück (27.22/23 buyer’s premium) devoted to Classical, Byzantine and Islamic coins has fallen onto my desk.

THE first day of the March 13-14 angling sale held by Mullock Madeley at Ludlow Racecourse was devoted to the literature of the sport. Seen right is one of two complete runs of The Creel from the years 1963-67 that sold at £200 and £210. A set of all bar one of the ...How to Catch Them series, all in dust jackets and all bar the Pike book first editions, sold at £460.

The 20in (52cm) high dinanderie vase by Jean Dunand, pictured, right, with original black patina and sleek Art Deco outlines belying its early date of 1913, zoomed to €60,000 (£40,000), five times the estimate, at the Tajan (20.33% buyer’s premium) sale of 20th century decorative arts on March 4.

ALTHOUGH there were no blockbusters at the 778-lot February 20 sale at Charterhouse (15% buyer's premium), neither were there many casualties, with 86 per cent of the sale finding buyers.