UK

Pictured here are two lots of seat furniture that impressed bidders in recent auctions in Gloucestershire and Cheshire.

Last month, Dianne Brick of Amherst Antiques announced she was winding up her business specialising in Tunbridge Ware after 39 years.

Irish marquetry furniture is a very distinctive form of decorative technique associated in particular with Killarney.

The furniture highlight of Cheffins’ (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) latest Fine sale in Cambridge was the catalogue cover star.

Many dealers who put a succession plan in place choose family. In the best cases, it brings in a highly trusted member of the next generation who has long been familiar with the business and is personally invested in its success and longevity.

The well-known miniature portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh by Nicholas Hilliard (c.1547-1619) in the National Portrait Gallery was painted c.1585, the year after Raleigh was knighted.

In 2018, British watercolours and drawings specialist Lowell Libson made the unusual move of adding a name, that of Jonny Yarker, to that of his self-titled business.

Many items from a group on offer in west London had been displayed at National Trust sites

Following the major sum for a rare picture painted in India by Arthur William Devis (1762-1822) at Gorringe’s, another work by the artist flew over estimate a fortnight later in Devon.

Found in a country house in Gloucestershire, this letter written by Lord Byron (1788-1824) to Major John Cartwright (1740-1824) sold for £6000 at Chorley’s (28.2% buyer’s premium inc VAT) on March 20.

Works consigned by family descendants of artists proved to be an intriguing aspect of the latest Old Master, British & European Paintings sale at Bellmans (25% buyer’s premium).

Nelson and Napoleon are just two of the historical figures to have collecting markets devoted to themselves. Another is Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965).

The age-old saying has it that dealers never really retire, but life does not always run according to adages.

Jeremy Knight, a book collector and the former curator of Horsham Museum and Art Gallery, believes he has purchased an artwork that is “the earliest-known illustration of a black person on an English sampler”.

The third book in the 'Blandings Castle' saga by PG Wodehouse was first published in the United States on July 1, 1929 by Doubleday Doran, New York, under the title 'Fish Preferred'.