Pick of the Week

Economic stimulus packages are not a new phenomenon. Georg Siegmund Stobwasser (1717-76) was among the many craftsmen attracted to the Brunswick by the special privileges granted them in the city by Duke Karl I (1713-80) in the wake of the Seven Years’ War.

A cache of material related to the influential Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61) and her family sold for close to £50,000 at Lawrences of Crewkerne.

While most early Scottish spoon types follow closely known and comparable patterns from England or mainland Europe, the ‘disc-end’ is an exception. Made for perhaps a century from c.1580, it is a form seemingly unique to Scotland.

Matthias Buchinger (1674-1740), the so-called ‘Little Man of Nuremberg’, was just 2ft 5in (74cm) tall. Born in Ansbach without legs and having truncated arms without fingers, he nonetheless excelled at many occupations associated with physical dexterity.

A lifetime impression of The Fall of Man (Adam and Eve) – perhaps Albrecht Dürer’s (1471-1528) best-known engraving – has sold for a record €430,000 (£390,000) in Germany. The buyer was a British collector.

A record price of £10,200 was paid last month for a pen and ink sketch by fell-walking legend Alfred Wainwright at 1818 Auctioneers of Milnthorpe, Cumbria.

This 8 x 10in (21 x 25cm) oil on canvas board sketch of two farmhands cutting grasses with a scythe is unsigned but it carries a label on the back from an Ipswich Borough Council exhibition which identifies the artist as Harry Becker (1865-1928) and the picture’s title as Fieldworkers in Mid-Summer.

The highlight of Bonhams’ rescheduled sale of Indian and Islamic art held on June 11 was a group of a nine Company School watercolours with an unbroken provenance back to 1812.

In 1765 the engineer and entrepreneur Matthew Boulton (1728-1809) visited Paris, where he observed first-hand the workshops of bronziers and the wares that were proving hugely popular with Georgian Britain’s elite.

A black chalk drawing of a skeleton drew an extraordinary competition at a German auction house Lempertz at the end of last month. Estimated at €3000-3500, it attracted at least 15 bidders and was eventually knocked down at €420,000 (£381,820) to a French dealer.

South Africa leaving the Commonwealth in 1961 had serious consequences for British exporters – particularly when withdrawal was followed by imposition of an import tax on luxury goods.

The original names of the gold coins used by the indigenous tribes of Celtic Britain are unknown but collectors have dubbed them staters after the Greek coins that inspired them.

As the Scottish regiments went over the top on July 1, 1916 – the fateful First Day of the Somme – they were led into battle by the wail of bagpipes.

A self-portrait by the hitherto little-known Modern British artist Michael Gilbery (1913-2000) sold for a record £10,700 at auction in Lichfield last week.

Of all the sensational jewellery displayed by Tiffany at the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle the most memorable was a group of 24 enamelled orchid brooches.

This monumental English longcase clock sold in a Massachusetts auction is a remarkable exercise in antiquarianism.

For their first appearance at the 55,000-seater Shea Stadium in Queens, New York, in 1965, The Beatles needed no promotion. At the height of Beatlemania in the US, the venue sold out in minutes.

The recent auction held ‘live online’ by Aldridges of Bath included this spectacular hand-woven north Indian long shawl, or dochalla. It came with a colonial provenance.

The popular Chinese game of mah-jong is a relative newcomer.