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For some years now, Far Eastern buyers have been demonstrating their fascination with so-called ‘sing-songs’ – the elaborate 18th century automaton table clocks made for the Chinese market by paying ever-increasing sums to secure them.

A recent sale at Bamfords of Derby included two outstanding pieces of Chippendale period rococo furniture, both consigned by a local lady who had inherited them from her father.

The British Antique Dealers’ Association is to issue provenance certificates for items sold by members as from this week.

Christie’s reported auction sales for the first half of 2014 of $3.6bn (£2.2bn), a 23% rise on the same period last year. Sotheby’s took $3.12bn (£1.9bn), a 22% increase.

The Art Fund have launched a new crowdfunding scheme to help museums and galleries, the first of which should also help boost the art and antiques trade around Hastings.

The most historically interesting entry in Bonhams’ clock sale held in their New Bond Street rooms came from the ten-lot section devoted to marine chronometers.

Born near Loughborough into a family of tenant farmers, Robert Bakewell (1725-95) is recognised as an important figure in the Agricultural Revolution – a pioneer of the grassland irrigation he saw while travelling in Europe and an innovator in the selective breeding of livestock.