Pick of the Week

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.

A shirt from the first time the famed All Blacks played in white instead has sold at auction.

It is a good time to be selling works by Thomas Daniell (1749-1840).

Rediscovered books and manuscripts that once belonged to former antiquarian book dealer John Percival Love and had been stored away in a bank vault for nearly 50 years captivated collectors and the trade alike at auction.

With clients including the Maharajah of Kutch, Queen Victoria and multiple princes and dukes, Holmes & Co was one of the top coachbuilders of the 19th century.

A set of six George III giltwood side chairs made by Thomas Chippendale for Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire sold at Dreweatts on January 31.

A somewhat innocuous-looking lot at Hansons (26% buyer’s premium) proved to be anything but as a number of eagle-eyed bidders spotted a significant discovery contained therein.