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WILLIAM S. ‘Bill’ Bertoia, antique toy authority and founder of Bertoia Auctions in New Jersey, has died at the age of 52, after battling with cancer.

MAGRITTE'S Oiseau du Ciel, pictured right, commissioned by Belgium’s Sabena airline in 1965, was sold at auction in Brussels on May 5 for a triple-estimate €3.4m (£2.3m).

FOR more than one reason, one might have expected the latest series of Islamic works of art sales in London to be a downbeat affair. Added to the prevailing economic gloom, this could surely be a sector of the market where the war in Iraq and its aftermath would have a depressive effect on prices.

SLEEPERS among saleroom sections of Oriental ceramics are a regular feature at auctions around the country and at Charterhouse Auctioneer's 28 March auction (15% buyer's premium) one came in the form of a late 18th/early 19th century Chinese lotus bowl.

SPECIALIST collector markets provided the highlights at Locke & England's Warwickshire salerooms where the 524-lot mixed sale on April 3 (12.5% buyer's premium) included sections catering to special interests in textiles, 20th century pottery and porcelain, toys and games and novelty silver.

A TIMELY debut for a garden and architectural items section at Andrew Hartley's April 9-10 sale (10% buyer's premium) brought in private buyers who usually fire this market but also a specialist who spotted a sleeper – a pair of carved oak corbels, each depicting the head of a cherub over an acanthus leaf and scroll base.

WHILST the rest of the antiques trade has taken a marked downturn, niche collecting areas remain largely unaffected. This was proved when the March 29 sale held by David Stanley Auctions (10% buyer's premium), specialist Leicestershire tool auctioneers, went on to be one of their best ever.

THERE were suppressed cries of irritation from the public at the May 8 sale held in Madrid by Alcalá Subastas as the Spanish State pre-empted all the important lots of the evening, including two newly-discovered paintings by Goya.

BRITANNIA Chapmans, the firm of removal specialists serving major auction houses, museums and art galleries, are celebrating 100 years in business.

The regular specialist carpets and textiles sales at Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis (15% buyer’s premium) have shown what can be achieved in the provinces even in the most esoteric subjects, and the latest 560-lot event put together by June Barrett and Ian Bennett on April 10 underlined this. War in the Middle East seemed more likely than most to hit this market, but after a creditable 60 per cent turnover and a total just shy of £100,000, June Barrett was more than happy.

THE Hindenburg archive, which includes the famous Leica and accessories recovered from the wreckage by Fritz Deeg, the steward onboard the airship when disaster struck on May 6, 1937, is being offered by WestLicht on May 23 and 24.

BATTERSEA dealer Robert Young, the country’s only specialist in English and European folk art, holds his fourth annual Exhibition of Antique Folk Art from May 16 to 24 at his showrooms at 68 Battersea Bridge Road, London SW11.

ON Sunday, 18th May 2003, antiques enthusiasts can have their objects of virtue, jewellery and paintings appraised at Chilworth Manor, Chilworth, from 11:00am to 4:00pm.

Illustrated right is one of 15 chromolitho plates after pastel originals by Étienne Léopold Trouvelot that make up a scarce, complete set of The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings, the work of a keen observer and talented artist who spent the years 1872-74 using the 15in refractor at Harvard Observatory.

AN UNUSED photographic postcard showing the ‘The New White Star Liner Titanic... nearing completion: locked in the largest graving dock in the world, Belfast, February 1912’, was one of the more popular lots in a sale of books, cigarette, trade and postcards, plus autograph material, held by Acorn Auctions of Salford on April 15. It sold at £210.

HALLS of Shrewsbury will be taking a very active part in next month’s Asian Art Week, having turned up a 157-piece collection of netsuke in the Midlands.

A pair of candlesticks featured strongly at ELR Auctions' 28 March sale (12.5% buyer's premium), were a classic by Ebeneezer Coker, who along with Cafe, is probably the best known of all candlestick makers.

Not such a pretty face, perhaps, but the artist was certainly worth a thousand dollars or more.

Black Forest Bear furniture is hugely popular and this late 19th/early 20th century stick stand in the form of a standing bear with outstretched arms, right, was one of the main attention grabbers at Clevedon Salerooms (15% buyer’s premium) on March 6.

LOOKING back on spring to see what green shoots of recovery might be discernible, a rather unexpected contender for the category turns out to be silver. Obviously, silver starts any recovery from a pretty low and long-standing trough but some of the results round the country certainly indicated that there was more than just auctioneers’ wishful thinking behind the optimistic comments.