Auctions

Bought at a car boot sale in the Portsmouth area earlier this year for just 40p each, these three opaque twist wine glasses decorated by the Beilby workshop of Newcastle upon Tyne c.1765 sold for £16,000 at the latest sale held by Stride and Son of Chichester.

THE discovery of a new clock by a Golden Age maker is bound to generate excitement in horological circles, but the £600,000 plus premium paid at Bonhams last week for the ebony table clock pictured here illustrates just how much the rarest and freshest examples can command.

ANY perception that the demand for top English delftwares had softened seems to have been scotched by the huge competition for this 17th century London-made mug.

A PICTURE purchased at Sotheby’s Chatsworth ‘Attic’ sale last year has become the centre of an attribution debate after being re-ascribed to Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641) by a leading London dealership.

BILLED as “the greatest collection of Modern British Art ever to come to the market”, the sale of the Evill-Frost collection at Sotheby’s in London did not disappoint.

WHEN a grand, photographically illustrated record of the Great Exhibition of 1851 was planned by the Royal Commissioners and Executive Committee, they nonetheless kept a tight grip on the exhibition purse strings.

IT is interesting to compare the commercial fortunes of these two similar, but not identical, Mouseman adzed oak sideboards sold at auction in recent weeks.

THE latest round of Russian art sales in London put in a consistent performance as auctioneers’ totals again benefited from a series of £1m-plus prices. Demand, however, remained selective with selling rates noticeably patchy.

THE Guildford Riverside Saleroom is to reopen under the banner of Wellers Fine Art Auctions after a seven-year absence. The firm, who had a presence in the town until ten years ago, will also continue to operate from Chertsey.

The OED lists ‘sphairistike’ as the name under which a certain Englishman, Major Walter Wingfield patented the equipment and rules for a new outdoor racquet and ball game in 1874.

ANOTHER major price for L.S. Lowry (1887-1976) came courtesy of Lyon & Turnbull's latest evening sale in Edinburgh, as The Hawker's Cart sold at £550,000 to a private buyer south of the border.

A VERY large, hand-drawn plan of the Titanic, used in the official inquiry after it sank in 1912, has sold for £220,000 at Wiltshire auction house, Henry Aldridge & Son.

IT took 50 bids and half an hour to auction this RMB370m (£35m) scroll, by Qi Baishi (1864-1957) at Beijing's China Guardian on May 22 – the latest demonstration of the breadth of mainland demand for modern Chinese paintings by the country's most acclaimed artists.

THE man who oversaw the French Revolution's 'reign of terror' but who finally met his end at the guillotine himself, Maximilien de Robespierre, was back on the block again at the end of last month as Sotheby's auctioned an extraordinary cache of documents in Paris.

IT is symptomatic of the changes in the Poole pottery market that the joint top selling lot in a large specialist sale last month was a 1960s rimmed dish.

THE latest Modern British art sale at Christie's in London set a series of new benchmarks for the sector.

DONNINGTON Priory saleroom Dreweatts sold the collection of Bob Oliphant as part of a wider-ranging auction of traditional art and antiques on May 24-25.

ONE of the USA’s largest regional salerooms, New Orleans Auction Galleries, have filed for bankruptcy protection but struck a deal to keep trading that will ensure all consignors are paid.

SALISBURY auctioneers Woolley & Wallis saw two more lots make over £1m last week.

CHINESE works of art dominated this month's Asian sales series in London but among the most successful auctions last week was Bonhams' dispersal of the second part of the Edward Wrangham (1928-2009) collection.