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ATG’s weekly selection of items on sale at auctions and dealerships.

ATG’s weekly selection of items on sale at auctions and dealerships.

A sketchbook by the Bavarian artist Georg Johann Scharf (1788-1860) was discovered recently by ephemera dealer Valerie Jackson-Harris at the Sunbury Antiques Market at Kempton Park.

While businesses and consumers absorbed the devil in the detail of last week’s Conservative manifesto, art and antiques business leaders were more occupied by what wasn’t in the 86-page document.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period May 11-17, 2017. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

An unexpected highlight of an April 28-29 sale held by Brussels saleroom The Romantic Agony (24% buyer’s premium), was a leaf from an illuminated manuscript.

The London International Premier Fair (June 2-3) is the flagship book fair of the Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association (PBFA).

The Fine Art Society’s exhibition Gordon Reece: The Art of Collecting runs from May 23-June 16. It has been curated by Reece and presents African sculpture and artefacts from the former dealer’s collection alongside the FAS’s own 20th century art and design.

ATG’s weekly selection of items on sale at auctions and dealerships.

A round-up of art and antiques news from the previous seven days.

“I think the secret to our success is that we now hold an art sale every four weeks.” A 90% sell-through rate from 400 lots was the latest bullish stat to come out of John Nicholson’s (24% buyer’s premium) monthly picture auctions, started this year by specialist Buffy Parker.

Coming up next at The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh is the exhibition Between Tides: Scotland’s Working Culture of the Sea.

Built from the 13th century onwards and the ancestral home and seat of the Stonor family for more than eight centuries, Stonor House near Henley-on-Thames is the backdrop for the biannual country house boot held in the parklands of the estate.

DEAR EDITOR – Without wishing to appear nit-picking (really, I don’t) the article in your militaria special that references the Lloyd’s Patriotic Fund Sword (ATG No 2290) describes Captain Rutherford as US-born, in 1764.

Artwork produced for the much-loved ‘Ladybird’ books by the late John Berry (1920-2009) were offered by Tennants (18.5% buyer’s premium) on April 28.

Containing over 150pp of notes and fragmentary drafts for two of her novels and a play, an autograph notebook used by Agatha Christie while in Baghdad around 1948 – perhaps while travelling with her husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan – sold for $15,000 (£11,625) in a Swann Auction Galleries (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of May 4.

ATG’s weekly selection of items on sale at auctions and dealerships.

David Bownes is the former head of collections at the London Transport Museum and director of collections at the National Army Museum. After a few years of building a collection mainly of British posters, he made the move from curating to selling with the launch of his Twentieth Century Posters website in January 2016.

Tribal, non-European or ethnographic art has experienced a huge growth in both general and financial appreciation this century. This boost is partly due to the connections made between indigenous art and its influence on modern and contemporary artists.

An 18th century silver mechanical lifesize musical swan that catches a fish out of a crystal stream entranced Mark Twain when he saw it an exhibition in Paris in 1867.