Latest News Articles by Roland Arkell
Northern Song bought in Hong Kong
18 October 2021This pair of small qingbai foliate dishes from the Northern Song (960-1127) period comes with a receipt showing they were purchased by the Oxfordshire vendor for HK$16,000 from KY Fine Art in Hong Kong on June 7, 2003.
Late Chinese imperial saucer dish and Qing bow case and quiver emerge in west London
18 October 2021This piece of late Chinese imperial porcelain, a 5½in (14cm) yellow ground saucer dish with an aubergine dragon encircling the ‘flaming pearl’ to the well and four incised cranes to the underside, has a dark brown six-character mark for the Tongzhi emperor (1861-75).
Daoguang famille rose ‘medallion’ bowls pledge prosperity and longevity
18 October 2021This pair of yellow-ground famille rose ‘medallion’ bowls from the Daoguang period (1830-50) have marks for Shendetang Zhi (Hall of Prudent Virtue).
Geometric furnishing fabric
18 October 2021Chinese textiles specialist Jacqueline Simcox is selling this 15th century Chinese silk brocade geometric panel, priced at £20,000.
AUCTION PREVIEWS: highlights from November UK sales of Chinese, Japanese and south-east Asian works of art
18 October 2021Once again the UK auction market gears up for the biggest of its two annual Asian art seasons.
From the field marshal’s collection
18 October 2021This 3ft 7in x 24in (1.08m x 60cm) ink and colour on paper of mandarin ducks swimming amid lotus blooms is by Chen Zhifo (1896-1962).
Lectern took musical inspiration
18 October 2021The November 4 Japanese sale at Bonhams includes, estimated at £7000-8000, this Meiji (1868-1912) or Taisho (1912-26) era lacquer kendai (lectern) fashioned in the form of traditional court music and dance implements.
And there’s Moore...
11 October 2021Bellmans is selling the script and production archive of film director, producer and screenwriter Lewis Gilbert (1920-2018) on November 17-18.
Great Exhibition in view
11 October 2021This chromolithographed plate is one of 52 (of 55) included in a copy of Dickinson’s Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851.
Book of Hours from c.1390
11 October 2021This illuminated initial comes from a late 14th century Book of Hours that carries an estimate of £20,000-30,000 at Forum Auctions on November 25.
A taste for travel from the Fox Pointe Manor Library
11 October 2021Housed in his home – Fox Pointe Manor in Anaheim, southern California – the rare book collection of radiologist Howard Knohl and his interior designer wife Linda reached more than 80,000 volumes.
'Lovely' copy of George Eliot’s masterpiece
11 October 2021The timed online sale of Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts including Americana that closes at Christie’s New York on October 15 includes books from the estate of Theodore Cohn, a professor of political science.
Houdini held upside down
11 October 2021Sotheby’s New York is selling the Ricky Jay collection on October 27-28.
Alexander Hamilton fascination
11 October 2021On October 25 Philadelphia firm Freeman’s will offer the Alexander Hamilton collection of John E Herzog.
Body of work – large-scale anatomical atlas
11 October 2021Printed in Amsterdam in 1685, Anatomia humani corporis, centum & quinque tabulis, per artificiossis by Godard Bidloo (1649-1713) was the first large-scale anatomical atlas since Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica in 1543.
First responder: physician's almanac
11 October 2021Tennants’ sale of Books, Maps and Manuscripts in Leyburn on November 24 will include this rare 15th century illuminated folding almanac on vellum.
Near complete Visscher atlas on offer
11 October 2021The sale at Peter Kiefer Buch und Kunstauktionshaus in Pforzheim on October 14-16 includes a near complete copy of 'Atlas minor, sive geographia compendiosa qua orbis terrarum per paucas attamen novissimas tabulas ostenditura' by the Dutch engraver, cartographer and publisher Nicolaes Visscher (1649-1702).
Printed map pioneer appears in massive German auction
11 October 2021Like Antiques Trade Gazette, German biblio auction house Reiss & Sohn is marking its 50th anniversary this year.
Single-owner collection of insurance company badges forms intriguing part of Essex sale
11 October 2021It was in the wake of the Great Fire of London in 1666 that the first societies were created to protect against the losses caused by fire.
Rare third edition of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol emerges
11 October 2021The third edition of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was the last of those published in 1843, coming out (appropriately) on Christmas Eve.