Auctioneers

Renovation project under way in Manhattan will provide ‘powerful marketing advantage for consignors’

A major collection of late 19th and early 20th century jewellery amassed by a Buckinghamshire collector over half a century will come to auction this autumn.

The first stand-alone British and European sculpture sale to be held by Dreweatts (24% buyer’s premium) was a solid-enough affair to justify department head Cristian Beadman’s belief that there is an exploitable gap in the market.

It’s a rare sale these days at which an English furniture standard challenges quality Chinese pieces for price, but the top end of the trade certainly rated a 6ft 3in (1.9m) William and Mary walnut and featherbanded bureau cabinet offered by Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (21% buyer’s premium).

Just as fine English mahogany is selling below par, Chinese furniture, particularly in the desirable huanghuali hardwood, is booming.

As both a collecting and a decorating sphere, taxidermy is one of the major growth areas over the past decade.

Preparatory and other unused drawings relating to Roald Dahl classics come to auction

Two of only 11 leaves of the original, working manuscript of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species… known to remain in private hands were sold at auction in London last month.

From 1936-45, St Ives artist John Wells (1907-2000) embarked on a series of labour-intensive creations while working as a GP on the Isles of Scilly.

A sale of books, maps and ephemera at Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium) included more than £17,000 worth of 19th and 20th century watercolours and drawings from the stock of a dealer.

Sotheby’s Australia has moved to new premises in the ‘Paris End’ of Melbourne.

Two depictions of the Madonna painted some 400 years apart were among the highlights of a dedicated sale of pictures at Dreweatts (24% buyer’s premium) in Donnington Priory in Berkshire.