UK

Many of us are addicted to books, so perhaps the premises of a leading rare book dealer, Maggs Bros in London’s Berkeley Square, is an ideal setting for ‘Opium: Santo Domingo Collection’, which brings together some 3000 objects, books, photographs and documents on the history of opium, its use and trade.

This stoneware bird jar dated 1891 established a new auction record for Martin Brothers when it made £67,000 at the latest Arts and Crafts sale held by Woolley & Wallis.

A painting of a Venetian palace by Claude Monet (1840-1926) led the latest round of Impressionist and Modern art auctions in London.

Abstinence was a ceremonial requirement prior to worshipping the ancestors, the heavens or other deities in the Qing court.

Setting a major house record at South London auctioneers Rosebery’s, this oil painting by Léon Bakst (1866-1924) drew eight interested parties at the West Norwood saleroom last week.

Work has begun on an £8m expansion at Tennants which will provide three new salerooms.

The argument was lively at this year’s ATG debate at the Summer Olympia fair, as BADA and LAPADA dealer Lennox Cato and Be Smart About Art founder Susan Mumford, disputed whether a gallery is still necessary for business in the modern marketplace.

The Museums Association is seeking urgent talks with Croydon Council to question them about a plan to sell 24 items from their 230-piece antique Chinese ceramics collection.

Bonhams have announced that they have secured potentially the most valuable lot among the works being sold from the Dr. Gustav Rau collection.

A rare linocut by Cyril Power (1874-1951) leads the sale of Modern & Contemporary prints at Bloomsbury Auctions in London on June 27.

Previously on loan to the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, this unusually large Jiaqing (1796-1820) period export porcelain punch bowl decorated with the Cholmondeley of Vale Royal coat of arms sold for £43,000 at nearby Saltney saleroom Byrne’s this week.

A large depiction of a magician commanded significant attention at Mellors & Kirk’s sale in Nottingham earlier today.

The Benson collection of early spoons was dispersed at Christie’s King Street last week. The highest selling lot was a Henry VI spoon with a Wodewose or wild man finial (one of only four known) which was secured by a UK private buyer on the phone for £70,000.

Is this Elkington kettle the earliest provable Christopher Dresser design for electroplated silver?

The Christopher Dresser Society will be launched at Teesside University on June 20.

The latest series of Russian art auctions in London set a combined hammer total of £42.7m to make it the most lucrative since the market peaked in June 2008.

Warwickshire saleroom Bigwood of Teddington, Stratford-on-Avon sold this mid 19th century whalebone cane for an extraordinary £27,000 at their latest sale.

‘Frieze Masters’ has acquired further gravitas following its successful launch last year by signing up several new heavyweight exhibitors for the 2013 event from October 17-20 in London’s Regent’s Park.

These tiny Chinese agate carvings jointly estimated at just £200-300 stole the show at Woolley & Wallis’ Asian series when they sold for 500 times the top guide in a packed saleroom in Salisbury.

The 2012 Olympics were the third to be held in London since the modern games were revived in the late 19th century, but in the Cotswolds market town of Chipping Camden they have an annual ‘Olimpicks’ tradition that dates back to the early 17th century.