UK

UK: MAINLY operating as a consultant these days, Robert Finan holds just two sales a year at The Old Ship Hotel in Mere, Wiltshire, giving him the time to assemble events which not only sell well – the 376 lots in April enjoyed a 91 per cent success rate and a hammer total of £187,325 – but are guaranteed to bring specialist bidders across a wide range of interests.

The loan exhibitions held by London jewellery dealers Wartski have become something of an event in the summer calendar. They focus on specific areas of the jeweller’s art and previously the spotlight has been turned on such subjects as the tiara in 1997, and two years ago an impressive show dedicated to the work of the Parisian firm Falize Frères.

UK: A striking amalgam of European form and Oriental decoration, this Meissen derived Kakiemon tankard was a rare hybrid, apparently one of only four in public record, and it consequently attracted worldwide interest at Woolley and Wallis’s sale in Salisbury on May 23.

A classic entry in Christie's South Kensington's Classic Arts and Crafts sale on May 2 provided one of the day’s top results – £6800 for this pair of 2ft x 12in (61 x 31cm) c.1900 stained glass panels decorated with mediaeval landscapes and a text inscription.

It may look like a cross between an ancient rolodex and a tinpot bandstand but this is actually a rather stylish piece of late Victorian heavy industrial equipment.

THE London fairs season gets seriously underway on June 7 with the opening of the The Fine Art and Antiques Fair, which runs at Olympia until June 17.

In the wake of the demise of Sotheby’s coin department, the good news is that one London auctioneer is making a comeback.

Devon auctioneers’ Rendells mammoth 2000-lot sale saw keen interest and strong prices for a selection of horological pieces.

UK: This sixth-plate image of the Japanese sailor Sentaro, nicknamed Sam Patch, was a top priced entry in a successful section of early Daguerreotypes offered at Christie’s South Kensington on May 11.

UK: London and Cotswold dealers secured the lion’s share of the top lots at Holloways’ antique sale in Banbury on April 25.

UK: THE football season may now have ended but back on April 24 when the Chester rooms of Phillips (15 per cent buyer’s premium) held their bi-annual sporting sale the season was at its height.

UK: AS with spoons, silver takes on an extra glow in the currently buoyant market for tea caddies an example of which came up at the April 26/27 sale at Taunton held by Greenslade Taylor Hunt’s (15% buyer’s premium).

Robin Day shot to fame as the winner of MoMA’s international low-cost furniture competition in 1948, but the bidding for a pair of Forum Lounge chairs, one shown, in the Post-War section of the sale at Phillips Edinburgh (15% buyer’s premium) on April 27 was anything but subdued.

UK: This month has been a vintage one for photographic images in the UK, with over £4.5m netted between the four sales held in London and Exeter at Sotheby’s, CSK and Bearnes between May 10 and 12.

After more than 30 years in storage, the Hereford Screen, one of the metalwork masterpieces of the Victorian age, has been conserved and returned to its former glory. Richly intricate and colourful, this Gothic Revival choir screen was made for Hereford Cathedral and will be unveiled at the V&A on Thursday, May 24.

UK: Chillingham Castle, Northumberland, is the usual venue for Jim Railton's, Gosforth, spring sale, but the predations of Foot and Mouth meant that it had to be relocated to one of the smarter districts of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

HY. Duke & Son of Dorchester have been brought in at very short notice to sell major pieces by John Makepeace on the premises at Parnham House in Dorset on May 26.

UK: Two Victorian mahogany bookcases topped this Ambrose , Essex sale – a library model with four glazed doors and four panel doors, 5ft 8in (1.73m) wide and a straightforward double door bookcase with two frieze drawers, 4ft 6in (1.38m) wide, each attracting bids of £1250.

UK: Gathering new business from buyers unable to attend salerooms in Devon and Wales, these Wotton Gloucestershire rooms were one of a small handful to benefit from the foot and mouth plague.

UK: Nineteenth century brown furniture under £2500 was the trade staple of this monthly sale at Phillips' Sevenoaks in Kent, where the fiercest bidding contest was joined for a 20th century set of 22 mahogany balloon back dining chairs.