Pick of the Week

This pair of satinwood demilune console tables with their fine marquetry and carved details are of exceptional quality and workmanship. The Thomas Chippendale workshop is a good candidate for their manufacture.

Sperm whale teeth, acquired from mammals that had beached on local reefs, had a deep significance to Fijian society.

Among the most extraordinary of all navigational charts are the lattice ‘stick maps’ used by Marshall Islanders.

The Battle of Britain or Dambusters are usually involved when it comes to sizeable Royal Air Force medal results.

An early view of Port Adelaide in Australia drew a flurry of overseas interest when it appeared at a recent auction in Massachusetts.

The story of the Poniatowski gems provided one of the great art scandals of its day.

As a general rule prices for most pairs of Staffordshire dogs, the quintessential Victorian fireside ornament, have dipped markedly in the past generation.

Cyril Arthur Farey (1888-1954) was one of the most renowned British architectural draughtsmen of the 20th century.

Ceramics by the Omega Workshops rose to unprecedented heights on March 17. The Design sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury included a small collection of pottery by Roger Fry that came for sale from the former Fulham Road dealer Andrew Harriss.

“At a time when gender, sexuality, identity and roles are being negotiated like never before, the story of Gerda and Einar Wegener has only become more topical despite the almost 100 years that have passed since the artwork was created.”

The collecting history of English silver spoons spans well over a century.

Found in a wardrobe during the clearance of a deceased estate in Spalding, ‘a group of four early 19th century French heraldic plaques’ sold way over hopes at Stamford Auction Rooms in Lincolnshire on February 26.

Sometimes it pays to look a little further afield.

This silver-gilt chinoiserie garniture would not have looked out of place at the Brighton Pavilion.

The search for doomed explorer John Franklin grips collectors almost as much as expeditions of discovery themselves.

With the advent of modern tournament chess in the Victorian era came the issue of game time.

A set of six 17th century portraits depicting Ottoman sultans sparked an extraordinary bidding contest at a Sotheby’s online sale.

Rare Japanese Meiji gold coin emerges at auction in West Sussex

In the early 1880s Alfred Barnard, secretary of Harper’s Weekly Gazette (the magazine that morphed into today’s Harpers Wine & Spirit), decided to visit all distilleries in Scotland, England and Ireland.

Relatively few English mapmakers came to the fore in the 17th century at a time when Dutch cartographers were well ahead of the competition.