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SOTHEBY’S concluded their latest Hong Kong series of sales on April 4, raising a premium-inclusive total of over HK$2.46bn (£212.5m) for the eight sales containing over 2780 lots.

ENTERED for sale by a descendent of the family for whom it was made, this carved wood and painted plaster model of an East End butcher’s shop sold for £22,000 at Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury.

LEADING US regional saleroom Skinner are to launch an online-only auction platform.

BY the early decades of the 19th century it was clear that the ancient and cosmopolitan game of chess would require pieces of standardised size and shape as it entered the era of international competition.

TWO Chinese works of art valued at £1.8m have been stolen from Durham University’s Oriental Museum in a night-time raid.

WHILE London auctions saw a 25% rise in value for 2011, sales outside the capital have also been growing.

THIS large, 18in (45cm) high, London-made brass lantern clock, c.1660, proved the highlight of the recent single-owner estate sale conducted by Durrants of Beccles.

LARGE new gallery spaces in Hong Kong look set to provide the battleground in the competition for private treaty sales between Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

CHRISTIE’S South Kensington has been forced to postpone their sale of the Raglan Collection at the 11th hour after a legal dispute over the estate resulted in a court injunction.

THE Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) have announced that they will hand back undistributed Resale Right royalties after six years.

IN February we revealed how Queen Victoria was an accomplished artist, but now her daughter’s skills have been highlighted by a Surrey auction.

WHEN the Royal Navy seized an enemy patrol boat in the Falklands War the name of it must have given particular satisfaction at the capture.

NEW York has just seen the greatest dispersal ever of Jewish coins and coins relating to the history of the Jewish people.

A wartime lithograph by C.R.W. Nevinson (1889-1946) promoting Britain’s aerial prowess made a record price for a print by the artist at Sotheby’s latest sale in this category.

A DEVON auctioneer has issued a warning after seeing off fraudsters who tried to con him out of thousands of pounds worth of jewellery and silver through phone bids.

AUCTIONEER Martin Lawrence of Petersfield firm Jacobs & Hunt was not expecting much when asked to conduct a probate valuation in a top-floor council flat in a rundown part of Southsea.

TOTAL auction sales in France rose by 8.6 per cent in 2011 to €2.38bn. Art, antiques and other collectors' sales accounted for just over half that figure at €1.25bn, a record total that surpassed the boom years of 2006 and 2007, as well as 2009 when the Yves St Laurent sale at Christie's in Paris gave a huge boost in what was otherwise a lacklustre year.

A REMARKABLE Chelsea porcelain bust with the potential to establish a new record for English porcelain will be offered for sale by Bonhams on April 18.

IT survived the Reformation and had been buried in a churchyard for safekeeping before being rediscovered nearly 200 years ago, but this ‘very rare’ medieval reredos panel has now fallen victim to thieves.