UK

The art and antiques trade has a new opportunity to state the case for antique ivory in a meeting with MPs and peers this week.

Well-provenanced Chinese works of art posted strong sums in what was a workmanlike, rather than spectacular, Asian art season for the leading regional auctioneers.

One of the most comprehensive and best-preserved football memorabilia collections auctioneer Graham Budd (17.5% buyer’s premium) has ever handled netted a hammer total of £107,000 for a remarkable 47 lots including medals and caps on November 14-15.

Musical manuscripts, letters and photographs of composers offered at Sotheby’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on October 26 comprised the first part only of what was described as “a distinguished private collection” of books that is to be dispersed next year.

Soviet art is in the spotlight this month as the London salerooms mark the anniversary year of the 1917 Russian Revolution with a series of trophy consignments to Russian Art Week.

A letter that Edward Lear wrote in 1881 to a friend to whom he intended to dispatch two drawings of Athens was among the more successful lots that Bloomsbury Auctions (24/18/12% buyer’s premium) sold on October 19.

Featuring both real and mythical creatures, including a monstrous selection of denizens of the deep, this map of Iceland with its mountains, fjords, rivers, glaciers and a volcano is one of the more famous found in Ortelius’ Theatrum orbis terrarum.

Inaugural winter art week involves series of joint ventures with dealers outside the initiative.

Anita (1930-2015) and Irvin Garfield Schorsch (1927-2014) were not typical Americana collectors.

It looks very tatty, but the dust jacket shown below is apparently a rare variant featuring a classic 1937 design by Alex Jardine for a 1927 first ‘Coronation’ edition of the Café Royal Cocktail Book.

Mark Jarrold of Vavasseur discusses the appeal of barometers, the need for new fairs and his love of strong coffee.