UK

For its 'London Art Week Winter' exhibition, The Weiss Gallery pairs historic painting with contemporary accessories and miniatures.

Sometimes described as the wireless which saved Ekco, the radical Bakelite circular Model AD65 radio designed by Wells Coates in the 1933 sold in its tens of thousands. It restored the fortunes of the Essex factory after a disastrous fire in 1932.

Two examples of the 19th century European craftsmen’s love of mother of pearl shone at Hannam’s (20% buyer’s premium) sale at Selborne on November 15.

Tom Edwards is director of Abbott and Holder, a picture dealer and conservator established in 1936. The gallery is in London’s Museum Street across from the British Museum, and specialises in British watercolours, drawings, prints and oil paintings.

Dealers are often on the move. Here, ATG takes another look at some of the dealers that have recently taken up new premises (or are planning to do so) around the UK and beyond. They range from former auctioneers moving into dealing and London expansion to first steps in the UK and Monaco.

Founded three years ago, the Whitchurch, Shropshire, firm of Trevanion & Dean (19% buyer’s premium) enjoyed its best sale so far when the 950 lots, ranging from Renaissance art to contemporary glass, totalled £250,000 on November 18.

Barry Potter is surely the king of toy fairs: he and his sons Ellis and Simon run toy, train and model collectors’ fairs in seven venues across the country – in Surrey, Bolton, Coventry, Doncaster, Birmingham, Stafford and Rugby.

Before Natalie Smith opened the Woodbridge Antiques Centre 10 years ago in the pretty Suffolk town, she told ATG that she was given a great piece of advice: never compromise on quality and presentation.

Topping a recent sale at Boulton & Cooper in Malton, near York was this unusual Georgian miniature elbow chair with shell-carved knees and cresting rail.

“This year the Malvern Flea has been the prize in our portfolio,” says Helen Yourston, director of B2B Events.

Selling the contents of historic estates, especially those in the same family for several generations, will often throw up surprises.

The sluggish area of Victorian genre painting provided Brightwells (20% buyer’s premium) with one of its top-sellers at the November 8-9 sale in Leominster.

An Old Master portrait of an elderly Stuart woman took £13,200 at Mander Auctioneers (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Suffolk on November 18.

For a relatively brief period during the 19th century, small silver boxes decorated with British landmarks found an eager following among the honeymooners and day-trippers of Georgian and Victorian England.

When is parachuting in a leader from outside an industry a good idea?

George Orwell is the focus of a first look at a November 7 Sotheby’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale of books from The Library of an English Bibliophile, the seventh in that series to have been held since 2010. Orwell’s books made a significant contribution to the overall total.