Auctions

There are only three other known examples of this early David Hockney (b.1937) etching titled 'Self-Portrait (not in S.A.C. or Tokyo)'.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Japanese antique ivories have been gradually disappearing from the catalogues of prominent dealers and major auction houses but good examples are still being sold in the regions.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the Nobel prize-winning poet, writer, composer, philosopher and social reformer, began to practise as an artist aged 60.

ATG picks out 16 recent stand-out items making waves in German, Austrian and Swiss salerooms

Perhaps the most identifiable production of the Daoguang period (1820-50) of the Qing empire is the medallion bowl.

Collections relating to leading British film director Lewis Gilbert (1920-2018) and his wife of 53 years Hylda (d.2005) provided very different lots for Billingshurst auction house Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium).

In Rodney Shirley’s monumental study of 'The Mapping of the World… 1472-1700', the very first entry is a simple, circular woodcut known as a ‘T-O’ map, one in which the continents of Asia, Europe and Africa are very simply shown as named segments.

The outstanding jade offered in the regions in the October-December period was this pale celadon teapot and cover that came for sale at Duke’s in Dorchester on December 8 from a Dutch private collection where it had been since the 1980s.

Bezoars (from the Persian pād-zahr meaning ‘poison antidote’) are the calcified concretion found in the stomachs of some animals. Prized for their supposed medicinal properties, until the Enlightenment science at the beginning of the 18th century they could sell for more than their weight in gold.

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.

In 1602 the Dutch painter and printmaker Jan Saenredam made an engraving of a whale that had been washed ashore near the town of Beverwijk.

A 19th century sea otter amulet in walrus ivory and baleen fashioned as a mother and her pup sold for £24,000 at Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium).

Grand Canal sketch has provenance to artist’s student who became a renowned collector

Original French text, translated by Caxton, then illustrated by 1930s engravings

A selection of 12 upcoming lots from auctions taking place around the UK.

Leading a recent Woolley & Wallis' (25/12% buyer’s premium) sale in Salisbury were two scroll paintings by well-known 20th century Chinese artists that came by descent from Field Marshal Archibald Percival Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell (1883-1950).

Qianlong moon flasks of this type are based on Ming dynasty prototypes that in turn were inspired by early Persian drinking vessels traded along the Silk Road.

Early Japanese porcelain models of animals are very rare, and this elephant form koro, c.1700, offered for sale as part of the Woolley & Wallis (25/12% buyer’s premium) Japanese works of art sale appears to be unrecorded.

This Japanese cloisonné casket bears the mark for the Ando Company of Nagoya.