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FOR 71 of his 84 years Harry Davis (1885-1969) worked as a decorator at the Royal Worcester factory, ultimately rising to the post of foreman painter. He painted a wide variety of subjects, but is best known for his sheep-decorated landscapes, all produced in the first quarter of the 20th century.

DAVID Teniers the Younger’s whimsical 6 x 8 1/2in (16 x 22cm), oil on copper view of Monkeys Playing Cards, sold to a private buyer against the London trade for a double-estimate €220,000 (£146,665) at Tajan on June 24.

THE problem with over-ambitious estimates does not just apply to the sort of significant paintings which consignors may be led to believe are worth sums in the £100,000-£1m range.

THIS 18th century embroidered and appliqué yellow felt horse blanket, right, emblazoned with the arms of the Tighe family and their motto Summum Nec Metuam Diem Nec Optem (Let me neither fear nor wish for the last day), was an evocative reminder of 18th century Dublin pageantry.

WITH selling rates that rarely dip below 80 per cent and steadily increasing totals that are the envy of more traditional departments, auctions of Contemporary art continue to go from strength to strength.

REGULAR sales of toys, dolls and bears are among the specialist categories pinpointed for expansion by Brightwells (15% buyer’s premium) of Leominster.

IN the same week that Sotheby’s and Christie’s were offering their summer selections of English furniture, Bonhams’ Bond Street (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) offered a 224-lot English and Continental mix that also incorporated a sizeable selection of works of art. The broader mix didn’t result in a higher take-up: selling rates for this July 29 event were 54 per cent by lot and 65 in money on a £640,440 total.

THE highlight of a 15-piece collection of Wedgwood ceramics offered for sale by Kidson-Trigg (15% buyer’s premium) of Highworth on May 26-27 was a pair of Wedgwood & Bentley black basalt oil lamps (one shown top right) that would have represented the height of fashion c.1775.

THIS elaborate late 19th century boulle longcase is typical of the revivalist furnishings that were the stock-in-trade of the Acton-based television and film-props company Period Props and Lighting that closed earlier this year after 30 years in the business. Their inventory was enormous and will provide Rupert Toovey & Co’s (15% buyer’s premium) rooms at Spring Gardens, Washington with a series of sales. The first tranche was offered on June 15.

CELEBRATING 15 years trading in their present premises, Anne and William Morris, who operate as Ruskin Decorative Arts, have a summer selling exhibition at 5 Talbot Court, Stow-on-the-Wold from July 17 to 25.

WITH its prevalence of antiques shops and auctioneers, one might imagine a degree of difficulty in locating a member of Cotswolds society untouched by the world of antiques.

ROUNDING off a sale of Western Manuscripts and Miniatures at Sotheby’s on June 22 was what, at first glance, must have seemed an unusual inclusion in a manuscript sale – a 13 1/2in (35cm) high carved ivory plaque featuring a figure of a Roman Consul.

IT is not often that an antiques dealer ends up on the walls of the National Portrait Gallery, but until September 19 that is just what is happening.

THE most desirable of the varied wares produced by the small ceramics factory established by Vilmos Zsolnay (1828-1900) in the southwest Hungarian town of Pecs are those created after the 1890s. It was then that Zsolnay – having encountered the glazes of Clement Massier in Paris – perfected his Eosine glaze and employed his principle designer Tade Sikorski to model forms sympathetic to the Art Nouveau and Jugendstil movements.

IN the eyes of many of today’s collectors, it is the realist interiors, which range from old farm buildings to grand rooms, and the figure subjects of William Henry Hunt (1790-1864), which are most desirable, a fact highlighted by the artist’s sale results.

WHAT do the Society of Women Artists (SWA), founded in 1855, and Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers (RMS), founded in 1896, have in common?

SCIENCE books in a June 24 sale held by Bloomsbury Auctions included a 1647, Danzig first of Hevelius’ Selenographia, the first lunar atlas, illustrated with a portrait and 111 plates (one with volvelle), mostly engraved by the author from drawings that he made in the observatory that he had equipped with instruments he had built himself.

THE High Court has barred the former directors of now-bankrupt Interactive Collector Ltd from serving as directors of any British company for a period of seven years.

SHEER decorative exuberance helped this Roman mosaic panel, c.2nd century AD, right, sell to an American private collector for $260,000 (£141,305), almost triple the upper estimate at Sotheby’s New York (20/12% buyer's premium) sale of June 9.

AS all but the very top end of the furniture market continues to stagnate, Andrew Hartley (10% buyer's premium) can take some solace in the solid private client base it has built up for its regular consignments of Royal Worcester porcelain.