Pick of the Week

A letter written to John Constable by a key patron formed part of the sale of Old Masters and 19th Century Art at Chiswick Auctions on September 18.

The only known painting of London by an 18th century Irish female artist came for sale in Salisbury earlier this month.

Long before the American/Australian actor Mel Gibson gladdened Scottish hearts with the woad-splattered film Braveheart, the early 19th century was an awakening for Caledonian identity.

Ralph ‘Randolphus’ Ayres is recorded as being head cook at New College, Oxford at various times in the 18th century.

This rare Chelsea porcelain leaf-moulded teapot and cover came between a goat-and-bee jug and a crayfish salt.

Found by a mudlark along the Thames in the early 2000s, these three well-preserved 1st-2nd century leather shoes would have once protected the feet of Roman children in Londinium.

It was on March 1, 1849 that Nathaniel Cook, the editor of the Illustrated London News, registered the design that would provide the ancient and cosmopolitan game of chess with its first standardised set.

Although the image may be familiar from stereoscopic photographs and engravings of the period, this view of the 1862 'London International Exhibition of Industry and Art' is an oil and canvas by the Italian painter Federico Moja (1802-85).

Remarkably, although a very successful and popular artist, no accounts of the work of the Georgian caricaturist James Gillray (1756-1815) were published in England during his lifetime.

A Polynesian ladle surfaced in a Derbyshire saleroom, selling for nearly five-times its £500-700 estimate.

The commercial fortunes of a 19th century map of the Arctic offered at Cheffins (25% buyer’s premium) this month were boosted greatly by its annotations.

The gift of the private collection of the late George Withers keeps on giving.

A pair of 19th century Parisian novelty silhouette hand screens, made by François Simon Alphonse Giroux, doubled their estimate at auction.