Auctions

An auction of traditional European decorative arts at Sotheby’s New York (20/10% buyer’s premium) on April 16 included this New Zealand Arts & Crafts presentation casket.

Jeremy Knight, a book collector and the former curator of Horsham Museum and Art Gallery, believes he has purchased an artwork that is “the earliest-known illustration of a black person on an English sampler”.

The first auctions of the year at Summers Place Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) in Billingshurst – a live event on March 26 and a sealed bids sale on March 27 – included this pair of rare Portland stone groups of a nymph and satyr by Charles Sargeant Jagger (1885-1934).

ATG’s pick of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com, featuring both the highest prices over-estimate and the top prices paid online.

Nelson and Napoleon are just two of the historical figures to have collecting markets devoted to themselves. Another is Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965).

The March 14 sale at Willow Auction House (25% buyer’s premium) in Lincoln Park, New Jersey, included a New York private collection of leaded and stained-glass panels.

The furniture highlight of Cheffins’ (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) latest Fine sale in Cambridge was the catalogue cover star.

Found in a country house in Gloucestershire, this letter written by Lord Byron (1788-1824) to Major John Cartwright (1740-1824) sold for £6000 at Chorley’s (28.2% buyer’s premium inc VAT) on March 20.

A Copeland vase produced to mark 100 years of American Independence was among the highlights of the second tranche of the Flower collection of majolica.

Abell’s (25% buyer’s premium) sale in Los Angeles on April 17 included a spectacular Art Nouveau vase from the workshop of French ceramicist Clement Massier.

The stand-out performance in the March series of Asian art sales was a Qing monochrome clair-de-lune bottle vase offered by Freeman’s Hindman (26% buyer’s premium) in Chicago on March 24.

Turtle soup, which first became a delicacy on European tables with the emergence of the West Indies trade in the 18th century, was hugely popular among the elite of American society at the turn of the 20th century.

As an original Mercedes-Benz 300SL now costs something north of $1m, it is perhaps no surprise to learn that original accessories associated with the Flügeltürer are eagerly sought.

Irish marquetry furniture is a very distinctive form of decorative technique associated in particular with Killarney.

A collection of microscopes and other antique scientific instruments from the estate of Ohio scientist John A Davidson Jr (1939-2023) came for sale at Gray’s Auctioneers (20% buyer’s premium) on April 17.

Among the highlights of Sworders’ (25% buyer’s premium) Fine Interiors sale was a collection of antiquities formed by the late Sir Clinton Charles Donald Cory (1937-2022), 5th Baronet of Coryton.

'A New Chart of History' by the British chemist and natural philosopher Joseph Priestley is considered one of the most influential timelines published in the 18th century.

The well-known miniature portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh by Nicholas Hilliard (c.1547-1619) in the National Portrait Gallery was painted c.1585, the year after Raleigh was knighted.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish books and works on paper sales

Following the major sum for a rare picture painted in India by Arthur William Devis (1762-1822) at Gorringe’s, another work by the artist flew over estimate a fortnight later in Devon.