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What’s a 10 hour taxi ride to a man who thinks he’s found a Ming dish? Why was the tragic marble visage of Queen Victoria worth more than £1m to the Fitzwilliam Museum? How to get the Antique Scientific Instrument Fair back on track? Trade members mull over these questions and more in our quotes of the week.

The postcard message reads: “I wish you were here, it is a lovely boat & it would do you good. Am just going on deck.” Actually, this wouldn’t have done much good at all: the boat in question was the Titanic.

Christie’s posted an auction record for any work by a Scottish Colourist when a still-life by Samuel John Peploe (1871-1935) drew strong interest at its latest Modern British art sale.

Demand from well-dressed gentlemen for authentic silk top hats for Royal Ascot this week has boosted sales for retailer Oliver Brown.

A bicorne hat believed to have been owned by Napoleon Bonaparte has sold at auction in Lyon for a hammer price of €280,000 (£246,000).

Consignors tempted back by salerooms to sell at auction in 2017 has helped put art top of the league of investment assets, according to the latest report.

The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge has acquired a marble sculpture of Queen Victoria by Sir Alfred Gilbert (1854-1934) after raising the required £1.01m to prevent it from export.

Christie’s latest Impressionist & Modern auction in London drew keen bidding on certain lots as the market reacted more favourably to the works offered than at Sotheby’s sale the previous evening.

The supposed Curse of Tutankhamen has somewhat overshadowed the astonishing discoveries of Howard Carter, the British archaeologist and Egyptologist.

A blue and white porcelain dish, believed to be from the Ming period, took more than 100 times its estimate at a small auction house in North Yorkshire. It sold to a buyer from Japan, who had flown in for the sale.

A charcoal portrait by Henri Matisse (1869-1954) of the writer and Bloomsbury hostess Mary Hutchinson was knocked down at £2.6m at Sotheby’s latest Impressionist & Modern Art evening sale in London.