Auctioneers

Around 400 people and businesses are owed money by Australian auction house and gallery firm Mossgreen after it went into administration in December.

More Channel Islands silver to add to over 250 pieces dispersed as part of the Paint collection at Martel Maides earlier this year came to auction recently.

Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and the Holy Places…, an elephant folio work of 1865 that sold for a treble-estimate £45,000 at Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium) on November 14, was a rare and complete proof copy of a monumental book of Palestinian views recognised as one of the scarcer colour-plate books on the Middle East.

Cockney barrow boy-related jewellery is coming to auction in Salisbury later this month.

The season, the spirit in question and the location of the sale put this bottle of Lagavulin whisky, below, into the spotlight.

The traditional Christmas Old Master series in London provided the first test of the market since the spectacular sale of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi in New York three weeks before.

Two pre-Christmas sales, one at Woolley & Wallis (22% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury and one at Mallams (20% buyer’s premium) in Oxford, highlighted the move of studio pottery from esoteric niche into the mainstream market.

Clocks from England’s ‘Golden Age’ provided highlights at two early December sales.

Unsigned, but breathing the name of one of the leaders of the Arts & Crafts movement in Scotland, this enamel panel and unmarked silver brooch sold for £5500 at Greenslade Taylor Hunt (19.5% buyer’s premium) in Taunton.

The late Gerald and Brenda Flowerday caught the collecting bug in the late 1960s, igniting a keen interest in 18th century English ceramics that would last for the next 40 years.

Jade remains ever-popular in the Chinese art field, although the market has become selective.

A remarkable group of 14 works by HG Wells – every one of them sporting a dust jacket – sold at strong and very often record sums in the book section of a December 15 sale held by Cuttlestones (17.5% buyer’s premium).

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Top-quality timekeepers of accessible size by major makers are the main strength of the 19th century clock market.

Renowned as he is for promoting – indeed, creating – markets in art, advertising mogul Charles Saatchi appears to have over-estimated the taxidermy market when bidding at the sale of the Will Fisher Collection at Christie’s South Kensington in February 2012.

Two letters sent by passengers who lost their lives when the Titanic sank in 1912 came to auction in the latter part of 2017: one of them posted before she sailed, the other recovered, along with the owner’s pocket book, when his body was pulled from the freezing Atlantic waters.