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An English provincial rarity, the 3½in (9cm) tall, c.1688 Norwich beaker below was a target for collectors at Henry Adams (20% buyer’s premium) of Chichester.

Titled ‘In the District of Moka’, the hand-coloured litho plate shown here is one of 40 that make up a scarce folio of 1832, Thomas Bradshaw’s Views in Mauritius, or Isle of France…

Artist often overshadowed by husband William now comes into her own at auction.

MADAM – On the recommendation of a friend I watched a few of the new Make Me a Dealer programmes presented by Paul Martin (ATGs passim).

It is the quirky designs of husband-and-wife team François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne that populate the top echelons of so much French design in the salerooms these days.

Rare as Forres silver is, three pieces by the Highland town’s smiths John and Patrick Riach were on offer at Edinburgh auction house Thomson Roddick (17.5% buyer’s premium) on October 11 – the fiddle pattern dessert spoon, below, and two characteristic Scottish toddy labels.

Since Jamaica declared independence in 1962, art on the Caribbean island has swung between two major styles: ‘mainstream’ and ‘intuitive’.

This classical Guild of Handicrafts bowl, below, underlined the popularity of Arts & Crafts silver when offered by Essex auction house Stacey’s (20% buyer’s premium).

This limited-edition bronze, below, by Italian artist Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) made £24,000 at West Sussex saleroom Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium).

Catalogued as a ‘travelling ensemble’ these two oak fitted cases of silver tableware, below, conjure up images of lavish inter-war era picnics.

Admirers of American neoclassical decorative arts have been treated to a wealth of exhibitions in recent years, and now even more is available to discover and acquire.

C&T Auctioneers of Kent is launching antiques and collectors sales, with its first taking place on April 3 next year.

A portrait of Thomas Cobley Gent of Buttsford, Colebrooke (d.1844), is believed to portray ‘Old Uncle Tom Cobley’, from the tradition song Widecombe Fair, as a young boy.

Despite its size and various eras of occupation, Malta sustained a vibrant silver and gold-working tradition across several centuries.

Containing near contemporary and even, it would seem, first-hand accounts of the voyages of Columbus and other travellers, a 1512 autograph manuscript of the Dialogo… of Bernardo of Albenga was a star turn in a November 13 sale held by Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium).

A deluxe issue of 'Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens' signed by celebrated illustrator Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) is one of the attractions at The North Wall Arts Centre’s exhibition 'Once Upon a Time'.

Born partly out of necessity and partly out of a reaction to austerity, British design in the immediate post-war era underwent a flowering of innovation with new styles, new materials and a fresh impetus that resulted in a very different class of furniture.

This pair of Commonwealth silver plates, London 1645, bear the contemporaneous arms of the Puritan Bulstrode Whitelocke (1605-75).

A cartographic highlight of the mammoth October 30-November 1 series of sales held by German auction house Reiss & Sohn (18% buyer’s premium) was the Insulae Moluccae… map shown below, which sold for almost four times the estimate at €38,000 (£33,670).