Auctions

A microscope used by Joseph Banks (1743-1820) on Captain Cook’s first Voyage of Discovery (1768-71) is going under the hammer estimated at £30,000-50,000 on November 1.

A vast collection of Royal Worcester porcelain put together by an Australian couple during frequent trips to UK dealers and auction houses is up for sale next month.

Despite wider economic uncertainty, prices for LS Lowry (1887-1976) seem to keep on rising.

The sale of Silver and Objects of Vertu at Bonhams Knightsbridge on October 20-21 was topped by a multi-estimate bid for a remarkable flatware service by Tiffany.

Charles de Temple is much admired as a key figure in the British 1960s modernist movement – one of the designers who ushered bold and abstract jewellery to the forefront of fashion.

Leading the sale of Fine Furniture, Works of Art & Clocks at Woolley & Wallis (25/12% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury on October 6 was a very fine pair of blue john and ormolu perfume burners by Matthew Boulton and John Fothergill.

The sale at The Auction Centre (20% buyer’s premium) in Runcorn, Cheshire, on September 30 included this rare George III Scottish silver member’s badge for The Edinburgh Skating Club – the world’s first figure skating organisation.

A number of pictures from another single-owner collection caught the eye at Dreweatts a month earlier than the Flaxley Abbey auction.

The creative roots of this 22in (56cm) bronze figure, which was one of the highlights at Nusser (22.69% buyer’s premium), date back to the pre-war years.

The growing interest in inter- and post-war works by Vietnamese artists - particularly those alumni of the Ecole des Beaux Arts d’Indo-Chine - means that France, as a former colonial power in the region, is well supplied with examples.

Translation was first time a major poem of antiquity appeared in an English language form.

Auction firm Art Research Paris will be offering two paintings by the Paris school Chinese-French artist Sanyu (1895-1966).

Since 1969, when it was sold at a gallery exhibition in Munich, one of Niki de Saint Phalle’s (1930-2002) well-known Nanas had belonged to a south German collector.

The complex and sometimes bizarre machines that the Swiss artist Jean Tinguely (1925-91) constructed during his long career belong to the most distinctive examples of kinetic art.

Among the potential highlights in Aguttes’ Contemporary Art auction in Neuilly on November 2 will be this work by Pierre Soulages (b.1919), 30 mai 1981.

Among the most desirable of all ‘Prattware’ transfer printed wares are the series of very rare and highly decorative advertising plaques produced for firms such as Crosse & Blackwell and Huntley & Palmers.

The central motif of Antoni Tàpies’ (1923- 2012) Personnage assis (Variation XI) has been the subject of many discussions among art historians.

Naive artworks that can also suit modern decorating taste are rising in popularity and price.

Bid to £3400, a 1703 first edition of Martin Martin’s Description of the Western Islands of Scotland in a later full calf binding proved the most expensive item in the 250-lot book and ephemera section that opened an October 5-7 auction at Stride & Son (18% buyer’s premium).