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IN The Sunday Telegraph of July 25, Sarah Jane Checkland offered that old chestnut “what paintings sell”. Much of the analysis was predictable – “paintings of women and children outstrip those of men and the younger and more attractive the better” and “prospects are grim for dead animals”. However, a few results of her survey were more intriguing.

PICTURED here are two pieces of Liberty & Co metalwork sold by Fieldings (12.5% buyers premium) of Hagley on July 17. The 8in (20cm) high pewter timepiece, top right, with a central copper and enamel dial with two enamel cabochons to the base, is a recorded design by Archibald Knox. The case, still with original patina, is fitted with a Lenzkirch brass bodied movement (the original key fitted to the door) and the base stamped 0370 Tudric.

THE August 25 sale at Burton-on-Trent auctioneers Richard Winterton includes a collection of studio pottery formed since the 1950s by the vendor who trained under, and for over 49 years has been a friend of, David Leach.

AT the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition this year, the end wall of Gallery II was completely taken up with a work which John Hoyland, Professor of Painting at the Academy Schools, described as “Terry Frost’s magnum opus”.

ART case pianos, as their name implies, are instruments with very decorative cases painted or elaborately inlaid, and usually one-off commissions.

IN 1963, following market research to discover the most popular girl’s name at the time, Lines Bros. (Pedigree) of Merton, London, launched England’s answer to Mattel’s Barbie and Ideal Toy Corporation’s Tammy. Sindy, with her rosebud mouth, large blue eyes and bouncy curls, was The doll you'll love to dress.

ON view at the Belgrave Gallery, St Ives, these two works by the late Sir Terry Frost represent a gap of some 60 years.

HELPED by contacts with the Traquair family, Shapes have a great track record selling the work of Phoebe Anna Traquair (1852-1936), the Dublin-born mixed-media artist who became a leading member of Scotland’s Arts and Crafts movement.

THE general strength of the Sèvres market was reinforced in spades by the very strong prices paid for two plates that featured in Christie’s King Street sale on July 5. Both are from celebrated services and both have the type of bold, slightly more masculine decoration that is currently fashionable.

WITH the King Street sale devoted entirely to Continental material, it was left to Christie’s South Kensington rooms to offer a home-grown element with the morning half of their sizeable 393-lot, June 24 British and Continental ceramics offering.

PAINTINGS offered at Lyon & Turnbull’s (17.5% buyer's premium) July 21 Jordantone dispersal were mostly comfortable furnishing pictures of some quality including this uncharacteristic Joseph Farquharson oil, right, entitled Fisherwoman on a Deserted Sandy Beach. Very different from the artist’s trademark mix of sheep, heather and swirling snow, the 22in x 3ft (55x 91cm) image of a solitary figure walking barefoot on the shimmering sand went to a private buyer at £17,000.

PABLO Picasso’s Garçon à la pipe boosted Sotheby’s second quarter sales considerably, alone accounting for about 9.5 per cent of the total.

THE most sought-after and best-performing English factory amongst the more select gatherings of English wares at Sotheby’s Bond Street sale was undoubtedly Chelsea. The auctioneers had 16 lots to offer, mostly consigned from one collection and of the currently fashionable Red Anchor period botanical type either in their painted decoration or shape.

ENGLISH and Continental glassware was also a feature of Sotheby’s June and July ceramics sales. It accounted for just over 30 per cent of the more affordable Olympia offering, where around two-thirds of the 115 lots changed hands, and just under a fifth of their Bond Street sale where around half the 33 lots found buyers.

SOME steady selling of material which has been hard to shift of late provided some encouragement for the trade generally at Lawrences of Bletchingley's (12.5 buyer's premium) July 20-22 sale and among the 2000 lots – which totalled nearly £200,000 – there were enough of those quirky offerings which make provincial British auctions the fascinating events they can be.

IT is frequently the unusual and the decorative that the market craves today. The ‘peach’ of the sale conducted by Kidson-Trigg (15% buyer’s premium) of Highworth, near Swindon on July 22 was certainly both, a group of 14 painted and carved wood and gesso models of fruit, pictured right.

THE story of the Boscobel Oak that gave numerous pubs a name also, after 1660, became an object of Royalist pilgrimage. By 1680 a protective wall was built round the trunk but, such was the souvenir hunting, by the early 18th century the tree had almost been destroyed. The oak at Boscobel today is almost certainly a descendant and not the one where Charles Stuart spent a sleepless night as he fled Cromwell’s heavies.

SEEN right is the illuminated title which, together with a full-page miniature of The Annunciation and numerous coloured and gold initials, make up the principal decoration of vellum manuscript collection of Prières et Oraisons Dévotés produced by the great calligrapher Nicholas Jarry (c.1615-7).

HIGHLIGHT of Sotheby’s (23.92/14.35% buyer's premium) book and manuscript sale on June 30 was Antonin Artaud’s 1947 portrait of his publisher Alain Gheerbrant, pencil, 14 x 20in (35 x 50cm), seen right, that made a double-estimate €210,000 (£140,000) to set a record for an Artaud drawing.

THESE two half-length images of women, right, could hardly be more different in date or technique, but their prices proved as uncannily similar as their poses when they came under the hammer at recent fine art auctions.