London

Sales abounded at TEFAF Maastricht and Masterpiece London this summer.

A group of medals awarded to the great scientist, explorer and naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) was fiercely contested at auction last week, hammered down for a £273,000 (or £327,600 with buyer’s premium) total against a high estimate of £80,900.

For reasons of both supply and economics not every collector of English 18th century drinking glasses gets to own a piece from the great Beilby enamelling workshop that operated at Amen Corner in Newcastle in the 1760s-70s.

With 207 pieces of silver from the Levant and all points East to China on offer at Chiswick Auctions (25% buyer’s premium), the stand-out pieces were the work of Iranian smiths.

Special report on Masterpiece and TEFAF Maastricht – both held in summer this year

Sealed examples with coats of arms, names, dates and places reveal a social history and give an ideal opportunity for genealogical research

When a new client with an interest in Roman marbles visited Charles Ede at TEFAF, they liked what they saw but thought they would come back.

Two Rolex tool watches were estimated to bring £80,000-120,000 each at a recent Fine Watches sale at Bonhams’ (27.5/25% buyer’s premium).

Selection of sale highlights from the exceptional Henry Rogers Broughton collection

Although he initially specialised in small furnishing objects and statuettes, the Parisian bronzier Victor Paillard (1805-86) began exhibiting with more elaborate creations in the 1840s.

A cheery Retail Fruit Trade Federation 1930s poster promoting healthy breakfast food features in AntikBar’s summer exhibition The visual Impact of Nourishment in Vintage Posters.

Mentmore (Towers) in Buckinghamshire was built in 1852-4 by Sir Joseph Paxton – creator of the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition – and Paxton’s son-in-law GH Stokes for Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild.

US museum curators and collectors were among the buyers at London Art Week (LAW) this month.

A remarkable Sèvres part tea service made to mark the recovery of George III from illness in 1789 was among the unheralded highlights of this year’s London sales season.

A suite of solid ivory and gilt furniture sold by Christie’s on July 7 appears to be the first auction lot to benefit from the exemption to the Ivory Act allowing the sale of items of ‘outstandingly high artistic, cultural and historical value’.

It was rather thin pickings at the latest series of Old Master auctions in London.

Despite appearing in a 1930s photograph held in the MAK Museum, Vienna, this wood carving of Adam and Eve seems to have hitherto eluded scholars of the German woodcarver Leonhard Kern (1588-1662).

The queen’s menacing message to Protestant courtiers makes an auction appearance

Fabrizio Moretti recently opened an Old Masters gallery, Moretti Fine Art, on Duke Street, St James’s, London.