Auctions

The invention of the megalethoscope by the Swiss-Italian optician and photographer Carlo Ponti greatly enhanced the experience of viewing photographs.

A monumental painting of an Old Testament subject, which came to auction in a gloomy state, drew a remarkable bidding battle at a West Sussex sale.

The personal art collection of film director and intellectual Pierre Rouve (1915-98), kept in his Chelsea house until he died, will be offered at auction.

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.

Embroidered samplers can appeal to buyers for all kinds of different reasons.

The distinctive Anglo-Japanese tables designed by the architect GW Godwin in the later part of the 19th century are known as Smallhythe tables, after the example found in Smallhythe Place in Kent which was the home of the actress Ellen Terry.

This Korean 10-panel folding screen made in the late 19th century in the final years of the Joseon period (1392- 1910) was offered on the second day of the recent Unreserved Sale at the Neal Auction Company (25/15% buyer’s premium).

During his travels to Europe, Winfield Robbins (1841-1910) amassed some 150,000 prints that he later left to his hometown of Arlington, Massachusetts.

Correct in detail, material and quality of construction, down to brass hardware, stencilled cloth and monogrammed leather trim’, a miniature Louis Vuitton trunk sold for $7500 (£5900) at Thomaston Place Auction Galleries (20% buyer’s premium).

Country house contents, global interest and a packed room of bidders - what more could an auctioneer wish for?

Watercolour of a sleeping feline – possibly her favourite cat – takes £19,000 in Cambridge saleroom

A recent Brunk’s (23% buyer’s premium) auction in Asheville, North Carolina, included a group of six small oil-on-copper mythological scenes by Neapolitan painter Luca Giordano (1634-1705).

The familiar heart symbol - that today is ‘read’ as love - made its first appearance as a rebus in the late Medieval era.

Snappy the Happy Bubble Blowing Dragon is a scarce battery-operated toy made by Marx in Japan in the 1960s.