Auctioneers

Despite the near absence of face-to-face trading, 2020 was a record year for London’s coins and medals auction houses with combined total sales just shy of £53m.

In his book 'Oriental Rugs' (1998), textiles scholar Murray Eiland Jr lamented the challenges in dating and identifying carpets woven in south-east India.

Few auction houses have expanded their roster of full-time staff over the past 12 months but one of those bucking the trend is Forum Auctions.

A recent Reeman Dansie sale in Colchester included 80 pieces from the estate of the well-known dealer Jane Sumner, who died last September at the age of 82.

This canine portrait 'Minnay' by Edouard Manet (1832-83) will be offered for sale by Drouot Estimations on February 26.

Although now known as Gainsborough chairs, generous walnut and upholstered armchairs were often referred to by contemporaries as ‘French’ chairs, as the most elaborate styles were based on French rococo.

Work produced in Brussels in the 1530s by a master of illumination soars way over estimate in Sotheby's London auction

In the absence of face-to-face contact, 2020 was a difficult year for the numismatics market as a whole... but the auction business found a way to thrive.

Georg Siegmund Stobwasser (1717-76) and his son Johann Heinrich (1740-1829) were among many craftsmen who moved to Brunswick during the Seven Years’ War.

Though incomplete and in a decorative 19th century binding, a very desirable early Bible impressed at Chiswick Auctions (25/12% buyer’s premium).

Sold for a record €260,000 (£234,235) in Hamburg was a copy of Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer’s Speculum nauticum super navigatione maris occidentalis…

On March 23 Christie’s France, in association with booksellers Jacques Quentin (Geneva) and Benoît Forgeot (Paris), will offer the first part of the poetic library of Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller.

Among the highlights of the year at Spink was a group of 17 medals awarded to Air Vice-Marshal Sir Matthew Brown ‘Bunty’ Frew (1895-1974).

The Medals, Orders and Decorations sale at Morton & Eden in November featured two Victoria Crosses awarded during the Indian Mutiny. They sold to the same buyer for a combined hammer price of £300,000.

Two pieces of sculpture – both catalogued as 19th century copies – made much higher than expected prices in the UK regions last month.

Early look of Peanuts cartoon strip evident from lot offered at Heritage Auctions.

After striking a few coins in both gold and silver which were still closely related to Byzantine and Sasanian prototypes, ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan ibn al-Hakam, the fifth Umayyad caliph, ruling from 685-705AD (65-86H), made a clean break with the pre-Islamic past and introduced a completely new gold coinage in 77H.

This coin, from the period known as ‘The Anarchy’, was discovered by a metal detectorist in a Yorkshire field in March.

The numismatic department of TimeLine is a small but important part of the auction house’s activities in the related disciplines of antiquities and medieval works of art.