Auctions

Two very good stick barometers, in the popular 1820s form with bowfront and ebony-inlaid mahogany cases, were among the highlights at Grantham.

To collectors of the so-called castle-top card cases, subject matter is everything. Pictured here is a great rarity.

Two pieces of Yuan dynasty blue and white porcelain smashed coveted auction records in the UK salerooms last week.

DOUBTLESS unique, but in its way typical of the sort of success enjoyed at Robert Finan’s sale, was this Russian 18th century emerald, ruby and diamond cross, right, mounted in silver and gold.

As celebrations abound for the most famous of all seamen, another great British admiral was being remembered in spectacular fashion at the Nottingham auction rooms of Mellors & Kirk on June 16. The subject of a fierce engagement between collectors was the so-called Rodney Jug.

Few will be unaware that 2005 is the bicentenary of Nelson’s death at the Battle of Trafalgar, given the number of celebrations and exhibitions commemorating the event.

LIKE so much material where the name is so much part of the game, the exquisite objets d’art fashioned in the Russian workshops of Carl Fabergé have attracted copyists, repro-producers and outright forgers.

IT was just three weeks into the First World War when British destroyers engaged the enemy off the Heligoland Bight near Denmark.

The July sales of Asian art will be notable for bringing two newly discovered pieces to the market, one in London and the other in Salisbury.

London turned up the heat in the market for Contemporary art when both Sotheby’s and Christie’s achieved outstanding results at their June evening sales.

The natural desire of a woman to wear the dress of her dreams on her wedding day may be an element of vanity even a Quaker bride cannot completely suppress.

Seven telephone lines and several bidders in the room competed for this venerable folding gaming board at the Diss Auction Rooms of Thos. Wm. Gaze & Son on May 21.

AMONG the mementos of the martial glory of her ancestor Hamiltons which Hope Hamilton brought as a bride to Pallinsburn from her Sundrum Castle home were four 18th century bronze carronades, one shown right...

Christie’s New York are selling the Bibliotheca Bibliographica Breslaueriana in three portions.

The specialist British sale held by Spink (15% buyer’s premium) on May 5 consisted exclusively of the collection formed by Samuel King.

The rainbow plate seen above right comes from an 1814 first issue* of David Cox’s Treatise on landscape Painting and Effect in Watercolours, an oblong folio work that incorporates a hand-coloured aquatint frontispiece and 31 plates (15 coloured, 15 in sepia) as well as 24 soft ground etchings.

A WEEK is a long time in politics, but nowadays the same can be said of sport. As soon as we read about a premiership player confirming his commitment to one club, the next day we see him signing for Chelsea.

Following the decision of Thames Valley estate agents Simmons and Son to concentrate upon their core business, a new firm of fine art auctioneers and valuers has been established in Watlington.

RACEHORSE trainers may be used to a photo finish but a battle between two famous breeders went right to the wire on May 17 when Graham Budd (17.5% buyer’s premium) in association with Sotheby’s Olympia offered a selection of chattels from Ascot Racecourse.

PERHAPS the rarest of all Beswick’s ouput is the Spirit of Whitfield.