Auctions

ATG columnist Richard Falkiner has hailed the Roman cameo glass vase which has been unveiled by Bonhams as “the greatest classical find since the Portland Vase”.

IS there still life in the Irish art market? The auction record for a piece of sculpture by an Irish artist was broken at Adam's 140-lot sale of Irish art on October 14.

It was Moorcroft’s take on flambé glazes that produced the highest price at Bonhams’ latest Ceramic Design sale.

AMONG the more run-of-the-mill furnishings that constitute the bulk of the popular Interiors sales at Christie’s South Kensington, there are often a handful of more quirky items.

FROM May 1913, the first distinctive Commonwealth of Australia banknotes were issued. They were controversial in that no portrait of the reigning monarch, George V, was included in the design.

METASTASIS, to most people, is a word with rather grim connotations – referring as it does to the spread of cancer. Applied to a set of playing cards, however, it has an altogether different and more attractive meaning.

THE first Conspicuous Gallantry Cross group to appear at auction also became the highest-priced lot to sell via ATG's live bidding platform the-saleroom.com when it was hammered down for £88,000 at Dix Noonan Webb on September 18.

THIS rare c.1912 Märklin fire engine toy topped the sale of the second part of the Donald Kaufman toy collection at specialist saleroom Bertoia Auctions in Vineland, New Jersey, on September 25-26.

BORN a wealthy European aristocrat and court painter to a Turkish Sultan, the Maltese count Vittorio Amadeo Preziosi (1816-1882) was nevertheless a familiar figure among the back streets of Istanbul.

THE Antiques are Green campaign, launched by Beaconsfield dealer Nigel Worboys earlier this year, is gaining momentum. Now we want as many people to back it as possible.

SCOTTISH auctioneers Loves Auction Rooms of Perth appear to have ceased trading, leaving vendors unpaid.

THIS diminutive table seen at Cambridge auctioneers Cheffins on the second day of their September 23-24 sale was a miniature version of the famous circular expanding dining table designed by Robert Jupe of Welbeck Street, London.

THE first tangible evidence of the new Dreweatt-Bloomsbury alliance will be the two-day preview at Bloomsbury's rooms in Maddox Street for Puritan Values, Designers and Makers 1850-1950, the 400-lot auction of the Anthony Geering collection.

BRINGING bidding from different parts of the world to Mallams latest sale in Oxford, this Chinese jade censer went spectacularly over its £2000-3000 estimate on August 26.

WELL-known Americana dealer Leigh Keno has established a “full-service” auction business in Manhattan.

According to legend, during the English Civil War, a Royalist descendant of Sir Christopher Harris (c.1553-1625) of Radford, Devon, hid the family silver in a cave before fleeing, fearing for his life.

THIS German clockwork tinplate limousine made a surprise £38,000 at Tennants of Leyburn at their latest toy sale.

THIS rare Meissen figure group modelled by J.J. Kandler, titled The Stormy Lovers sold for £26,000 at Paul Beighton's latest sale.

Speculation of financial turmoil at Ritchies continues after the established Toronto auctioneers closed their doors for a fortnight, laying off their entire staff.

A SUBSTANTIAL, and previously unpublished, collection of letters written by various members of the Bloomsbury Group to Helen Anrep (1885-1965) is to be sold by the East Sussex auctioneers Gorringes in Lewes on September 3, along with a collection of artworks by members of the group consigned from the same estate.