UK

UK: CHANCELLOR Gordon Brown’s change in VAT policy for museums should safeguard free entry where it already exists.

UK: HEAVY snow on the morning of this 360-lot dispersal in Northumberland resulted in an influx of phone bids and a distinct lack of private buyers. However, bidding was competitive enough to bring a total of around £50,000 exceeding Mr Dudgeon’s expectations.

Filippo Bonanni’s Gabinetto Armonico of 1723 will be familiar to most lovers of old musical instruments in the form of a Dover reprint of the 1960s, but the engraved plate reproduced above is one of 152 from the Fort Augustus copy of the real thing, bound in contemporary mottled calf gilt, which sold at £3800 to Bruce Marshall.

UK: THE title page of a 1613, first complete edition of Galileo Galilei’s Istoria e Dimostrazioni..., containing his observations on the sunspots and his discoveries relating to the rotation of the sun – the first to contain Scheiner’s letters to Welser – which, bound in contemporary vellum, made £4500 (Quaritch) as an ex-Fort Augustus lot.

UK: Sotheby’s are hoping one of the most important watercolours by J.M.W. Turner to come to the rostrum will smash all previous auction records for the artist when it comes under the hammer in London on June 14.

UK: FRESH on the market, reasonably estimated and of undoubted quality – but three silver dessert baskets offered at Somerset still provided a surprise when, as has happened elsewhere, the ‘right’ piece of silver exceeds all expectations.

UK: IN A richly gilt and inlaid green morocco binding by Bayntun Rivière, a copy of the 1894 Kelmscott edition of Swinburne’s Atalanta in Calydon – an ex-Beeleigh Abbey lot with William Foyle’s red morocco bookplate – was sold at £1700 (Shapero).

UK: THIS 1564 Venetian edition of Dante’s Divina Commedia was the first to incorporate the commentaries of both Landino and Vellutello, which, printed in roman type, surround the italic setting of Dante’s text.

UK: NEW and old technology were both part of a successful Saturday event for the Surrey auctioneers.

Ilkley rooms start the new year at the double UK: AGAINST a widely reported background of a slow start to the year, these West Yorkshire auctioneers got off to such a busy start that the first of their six annual one-day sales spilled over into a two-day event.

UK: COINCIDING with the recent recovery of Donald Campbell’s boat from Coniston Water, photographs and ephemera relating to Campbell’s famous father Sir Malcolm attracted extra interest at this Devon sale.

UK: A POTENT combination of nostalgia and rarity lay behind the £12,000 paid for the poster pictured here in Christie’s South Kensington’s (17.5/10 per cent buyer’s premium) annual ski poster sale on February 22.

UK: A TYPICAL mammoth offering of 1463 lots at the Norfolk rooms’ collectors’ sale included something for just about anyone buying on a modest budget – and, as usual, a few unexpected bidding battles.

UK: THE Staffordshire auctioneers are the latest to introduce a Decorative Arts section to their sales to catch the current market trend and, although in this case, these largely comprised the sort of 20th century ceramics seen in most rooms, giving them their own section appeared to pay off.

UK: THE current strength of the market for anything by L.S. Lowry (1887-1976) has often been reported in these pages. On February 23 it was the turn of Chichester auctioneers Strides (15 per cent buyer’s premium) to experience the lure of the Salford-born artist when Old houses, the 15 by 19in (38 x 48cm) oil on plywood shown here, came under the hammer.

UK: TALES of the glory of Swedish feats of arms have faded somewhat since the days of Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII but the Swedes went on producing quality armaments and armour as was shown this unusual offering, right, at the January 31 sale held by Birmingham specialists Weller & Dufty (15 per cent buyer’s premium).

UK: A rather tatty, plain appearance warranted an estimate of £800-1200 on this George III architect’s table at Neales’ sale in Nottingham on February 23, but its virginal structure encouraged interest from the highest reaches of the London trade.

Art Deco UK: DANCER of Kapurthala, this 22in (56cm) high Chiparus bronze and ivory cat-suited agile performer atop a marble base, provided the highlight of Christie’s South Kensington’s (17.5/10 per cent buyer’s premium) fourth Classic Art Deco sale on February 15 when it sold for £32,000 to a British collector.

UK: ILLUSTRATED here is a plan of Aberdeen, one of 47 double-page engraved or litho plans (some folding) from a copy of John Wood’s Town Atlas of Scotland of 1818-26, rebound in modern boards, which sold for £2800 in the Lyon & Turnbull sale of February 17.

UK: FOLLOWING these Surrey room’s Gaudy Welsh extravaganza last November, a further 40 pieces featured in their 500-lot January sale.