UK

Dealer Andrew Sim has sold 14 Second World War pictures by Polish-born artist Feliks Topolski (1907-89) to the Imperial War Museum.

A large oil on panel map by MacDonald Gill celebrating the presence of stationer WH Smith on the British high street in the 1920s was hammered down at £50,000 in Gloucestershire.

St James’s art dealer Derek Johns is offering a portrait of Sir Everard Fawkener, a former British ambassador to Constantinople, by Swiss artist Jean-Etienne Liotard (1702-89).

Despite the general controversy about the material – one that has momentarily taken a back seat as Brexit eats parliamentary time – an exceptional ivory work of art still has the capacity to impress in the saleroom.

Organisers looking for an unusual spot at which to hold a fair might consider the setting alongside an outdoor swimming pool.

Bid to £19,700 in a recent sale was one of 100 signed, large paper firsts of Oscar Wilde’s 'The Importance of Being Earnest' published by Leonard Smithers in 1899.

In the proud tradition of UK provincial auction houses, the 2000-lot, three-day sale at Mitchells (20% buyer’s premium) offered a world of artefacts from way beyond its Lakeland base of Cockermouth.

Launched two years ago at a Victorian mansion in Surrey by local online antiques dealer David Steel, the Tree of Ages Antiques Fair will be held on Sunday, May 12, at Robert Denholm House in Nutley.

Given that the sale ran to a huge 1139 lots, the April 2-4 dispersal in Harrogate of the first part of the library of Robert James Hayhurst may be considered to have done well in achieving a selling rate of 85% at that gathering of Elzevir and other early printed works.

Detailed down to pneumatic tyres, knock-off hub caps and rack-and-pinion steering, the clockwork toy of Alfa Romeo’s P2, the world-beating racing car between 1924-30, was produced by CIJ (Compagnie Industrielle du Jouet) from 1924-35.

Estimated at just £50-80, an Alice Davis Hitchcock medallion sold for £3000 (plus 20% buyer’s premium) at a Spink auction in London on April 10.

A late 19th century gold bone-handled Arab dagger was hammered down at £4100 at the inaugural sale of Knightsbridge auction house Kings Russell (22% buyer’s premium).

A country house car boot to raise funds for a newly opened specialist equestrian centre in Much Wenlock, Shropshire, will run at the 800-acre Isle Estate at Bicton near Shrewsbury on Sunday May 12.

Something of a roll call for the great and good across the British 19th-20th century arts scene, Lyon & Turnbull’s (25% buyer’s premium) Decorative Arts: Design Since 1860 sale included such names as George Washington Jack, Sir Alfred Gilbert, Christopher Dresser, William de Morgan and Robert Bartlett.

George Catlin’s watercolour sketches of North American Indians, reported in ATG No 2387, were the star turns as far as original artworks were concerned at Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on March 28. However, two original, signed caricatures by Max Beerbohm also brought good results.

A bound volume of early works on a famous automaton chess player, featured in ATG No 2387, was not the only lot in a recent Cumbrian sale to produce a handsome return.

British and Irish book auctions: April 16-27, 2019

A collaborative portrait between two revered 19th century equestrian painters will lead a sale of sporting art at Essex saleroom Sworders on April 30.