Auctioneers

Titled ‘In the District of Moka’, the hand-coloured litho plate shown here is one of 40 that make up a scarce folio of 1832, Thomas Bradshaw’s Views in Mauritius, or Isle of France…

Artist often overshadowed by husband William now comes into her own at auction.

It is the quirky designs of husband-and-wife team François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne that populate the top echelons of so much French design in the salerooms these days.

Rare as Forres silver is, three pieces by the Highland town’s smiths John and Patrick Riach were on offer at Edinburgh auction house Thomson Roddick (17.5% buyer’s premium) on October 11 – the fiddle pattern dessert spoon, below, and two characteristic Scottish toddy labels.

Since Jamaica declared independence in 1962, art on the Caribbean island has swung between two major styles: ‘mainstream’ and ‘intuitive’.

This classical Guild of Handicrafts bowl, below, underlined the popularity of Arts & Crafts silver when offered by Essex auction house Stacey’s (20% buyer’s premium).

This limited-edition bronze, below, by Italian artist Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) made £24,000 at West Sussex saleroom Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium).

Italy, like many European countries whose economies were ravaged during the war, had to face the challenge of picking itself up and starting afresh once hostilities were over.

Catalogued as a ‘travelling ensemble’ these two oak fitted cases of silver tableware, below, conjure up images of lavish inter-war era picnics.

C&T Auctioneers of Kent is launching antiques and collectors sales, with its first taking place on April 3 next year.

Despite its size and various eras of occupation, Malta sustained a vibrant silver and gold-working tradition across several centuries.

Containing near contemporary and even, it would seem, first-hand accounts of the voyages of Columbus and other travellers, a 1512 autograph manuscript of the Dialogo… of Bernardo of Albenga was a star turn in a November 13 sale held by Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium).

This fine pair of Victorian silver six-branch candelabra sold to a United Arab Emirates bidder on thesaleroom.com for £13,000 at John Nicholson’s (24% buyer’s premium) in Haslemere, Surrey, on October 15.

The jacket of the 1904 first of Jack London’s The Sea-Wolf shown right is quite obviously in a sorry state – falling apart and with sizeable sections missing all round. It is, however, a jacket previously known only by rumour or talk of ‘one other copy thought to exist’.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Following the wake of the influential 1862 International Exhibition in London (when Japanese art first reached a wide British audience), this tea service below would have been the height of fashion when it was made by Richard Martin and Ebenezer Hall in 1879.