Auctioneers

Derbyshire-based Hansons Auctioneers is opening a London saleroom, with plans to host fine art and antiques auctions once a month from February 2018.

A gold memorial ring made for one of Nelson’s ‘Band of Brothers’ – and containing a lock of the Admiral’s hair – sold for £20,000 (plus premium) at Duke’s of Dorchester on December 7.

It may be strange and surreal, but John Spencer-Churchill’s (1909-92) landscape panorama of the evacuation of Dunkirk is the only depiction of the event known to have been painted by an eyewitness.

The photographic archive of Emile Zola (1840-1902) was offered by Artcurial (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on December 4 with over 90% of the 75 lots changing hands.

‘Stage Coach Passengers passing Woburn Sands’ is one of 100 coloured engraved caricatures after Isaac Cruikshank that illustrate GM Woodward’s Eccentric Excursions or Literary and Pictorial Sketches in England and South Wales, interspersed with Curious Anecdotes of 1807.

The famous photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson are no strangers to salerooms but it is not every day that you find 120 lots being offered from a single-owner collection.

Haute Epoque, the French term given to early, largely pre-Renaissance, works of art, especially sculpture, featured in several Parisian sales in the winter high season.

Realistically modelled crib figures are a particular speciality of southern European countries – the Santons of Provence being one well-known example. Another is the famous presepe figures from Naples.

A ‘rediscovered’ fifth copy of Martin Waldseemüller’s globe gores from c.1507 was withdrawn from sale last week after a group of academics and dealers in the US expressed doubts over its authenticity.

An extraordinary example of British avant-garde clothing made on the eve of the First World War sold for £29,000 (plus 20% buyer’s premium) at Mallams Oxford on December 8.