Latest News Articles by Roland Arkell
Song dynasty Chinese bowl, Roman cutlery and a Victorian board game – six lots to watch at auction this week
20 January 2020With estimates from £400-12,000 here are six previews of upcoming items.
Collection of British Library designers to be offered at Sworders' auction
20 January 2020Items from the homes of MJ Long (1939-2018) and Colin ‘Sandy’ St John Wilson (1922-2007), the husband and wife team that designed the British Library, come for sale at Sworders in Stansted Mountfitchet later this month.
US auctions: New York series of Old Master drawings includes 'triumphant' equestrian studies
20 January 2020Sotheby’s holds the first of its New York series of Old Master paintings and drawings at the end of January with its Masters Week sales running from January 24-31.
19th century portrait miniature, French boulle marquetry cabinets and artwork featuring Marlon Brando – six auction highlights that caught bidders’ eyes in the last week
17 January 2020ATG’s selection of hammer highlights this week includes a pair of Napoleon III boulle marquetry cabinets that sold for five-times over estimate and a 19th century portrait miniature that made 13-times estimate.
Pick of the week: Ingenious Jupe’s expanding dining table takes £80,000 in New Year opener
13 January 2020The New Year sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury included one of the most desirable and celebrated of all Victorian furniture types: a mahogany ‘Jupe’s patent’ radially expanding dining table.
Halls to auction 400 works from Lloyds Bank collection
13 January 2020Halls of Shrewsbury is to sell more than 400 paintings on behalf of Lloyds Bank in an online sale later this month. The consignment will make up part of a Modern and Contemporary Art online auction, which starts on January 17 and ends on January 31.
Luba staff brings New Year cheer at Gildings’ auction
13 January 2020Catalogued simply as an ‘African ceremonial tribal spear’ and estimated at £200-300, a Luba staff of office sold for an unexpected £18,500 (plus 15% buyer’s premium) at Gildings’ first sale of the new year in Market Harborough.
Four lots to watch at auction this week including Covent Garden linocut by Edward Bawden
13 January 2020With estimates from £10-1800 here are four previews of upcoming items this week.
Performing elephant silver novelty sells well above predictions
13 January 2020Victorian silver novelties do not come much better than this claret jug, formed as a 9in (23cm) tall kneeling elephant by James Barclay Hennell, London 1881. The hinged head (currently lacking tusks) forms the cover.
Candlesticks light up Bruges sale
13 January 2020This impressive and rare pair of silver table candlesticks with cluster columns, square bases and drip cups had no visible hallmarks but is probably Dutch and late 17th century in date.
Youghal basting spoon draws interest in Salisbury
13 January 2020Alongside pieces made in Kinsale, Galway and Waterford, silver from the small County Cork town of Youghal is among the scarcest of all Irish provincial silver. Only a handful of pieces survive that carry the punning town mark of a yawl.
Hastings silver leaves its native Norfolk
13 January 2020The sale at Cheffins (22.5% buyer’s premium) in Cambridge on December 12 included a cache of Victorian and earlier silver from the collection of Delaval Astley, 23rd Baron Hastings (b.1960).
Pugin’s christening gift draws strong interest
13 January 2020This small Gothic Revival beaker was made by ecclesiastical metal manufacturer John Hardman (Birmingham, 1848) at the height of the first partnership with AWN Pugin.
Silver coffee pots: a selection of hammer highlights
13 January 2020The typical Georgian silver coffee pot is one of the great bargains of 21st century antiques collecting.
Novelty silver pin cushions take flight
13 January 2020Pin cushions have their own niche market in the novelty silver field. Nineteen Edwardian examples were offered at a sale at Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury last year.
Versailles steps in for Sabine cast
13 January 2020Palace uses power of pre-emption to buy cast of Giambologna’s seminal sculpture at auction.
The bell tolls for two prize silver porkers
13 January 2020Edwardian silver table bells modelled as tortoises are not too hard to find but silver pigs are a much rarer beast. Accordingly, it was surprising to see two appear on two successive days at winter sales.