Pick of the Week

Three models from an English porcelain factory about which almost nothing is known surfaced for sale in East Sussex last week.

Although catalogued as 18th century, this marquetry table cabinet – sold for a multi-estimate sum in Ireland last week – is more probably late 16th or early 17th century.

The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle was among the buyers when Tennants sold 13 quilts that belonged to Durham hill farmer Hannah Hauxwell (1926-2018) on February 9.

An 18th century pocket watch by Gibraltarian goldsmith Henry Cowper emerged for sale at Rowley’s auction house in Ely. It belonged to a Lincolnshire private collector who bought it over 50 years ago for £1 from a former resident of the Rock.

An exceptional Victorian scratch-built model steam engine has returned home after the maker’s great-grandson bought it from UK dealer Vavasseur Antiques.

A sledge from the first expedition to the Antarctic led by Ernest Shackleton sold for £115,000 in Bonhams’ Travel and Exploration sale on February 6.

Lovely bunch of blooms? A closer look reveals Irish Quaker’s conchological talent...

The precise function of the series of English tin-glazed earthenware seated cat jugs common to the 1650s-70s is unknown but, as many are dated and initialled, they may have been given as marriage or betrothal gifts.

Ephemera, photos and, remarkably, a penguin egg relating to Captain Robert Scott’s ill-fated 'Terra Nova' Expedition to the Antarctic in 1910 were eagerly contested in the room, on the phone and online at Stroud Auction Rooms’ latest sale.

Auctions on New Year’s Day are a tradition in regional North America. The sale at Nadeau’s in Windsor, Connecticut, on the first day of 2019 included a collection of 17th and 18th century English silver that had been given to Yale University in 1896 in memory of a former alumnus, the Pennsylvania coal baron James Browne Neale.

“Every specialist has an object that they dream of having in their sales,” says Matthew Rubinger, Christie’s head of handbags and accessories. “For me, it’s the aluminium Explorer trunk by Louis Vuitton. The market is full of silver-coloured metal trunks, but this piece is their inspiration.”

A table designed by a teenaged Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-52) for Windsor Castle sold for £23,500 (plus 21% buyer’s premium) at Gorringe’s of Lewes on December 4.

The highlight of the latest series of Old Master sales in London was not a painting this time around but a rare work on paper by an enigmatic draughtsman.

Capping a vintage year for prime-period Mouseman furniture, a dining suite attracted huge interest when offered for sale in Yorkshire recently.

An unusual belt buckle by the Parisian jeweller and glass maker René Lalique which had been worn by the vendor throughout her nursing career has sold for £19,000 at a North Yorkshire auction.

Of all the types of playful drinking cups or trinkspiel made by Dutch and German goldsmiths during the 16th and 17th centuries, the example offered by Sotheby’s in Paris last week was surely the most elaborate.

Proof once more of the allure of market-fresh goods, the collection of Roger Soame Jenyns (1904-76) excelled at Christie’s Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art sale.

Among the most desirable of all needlework samplers are those associated with pupils of the orphanages, asylums and charity schools of the Georgian and Victorian eras.

Was this the gun that John James Audubon (1785-1851) used to create the world’s most expensive natural history book?