Auctioneers

Information has come to light proving that a newly-discovered flag due to sell at auction in March was not that flown from HMS Leviathan at the Battle of Trafalgar. It has since been withdrawn from sale.

A museum in Switzerland has acquired this extraordinary monkey band automaton at an online-only auction conducted by East Bristol Auctions, in Hanham, Bristol.

The competition between auction houses to expand their private sales operations took a new twist with the announcement last week that Sotheby’s had bought art advisory firm Art Agency, Partners (AAP).

Leading auctioneers in Ireland and Scotland enjoyed a solid, if unspectacular, year of sales in 2015.

Despite some obvious condition issues – including the absence of a handle and a significant portion of the pedestal base – this late 18th century Italian white marble model of the Warwick Vase sold for £14,000 at Woolley & Wallis’ latest sale.

Despite some welcome exceptions, 2015 proved a unspectacular year for Britain and Ireland’s regional fine art auctioneers with one in three salerooms experiencing a fall in sales.

The upheaval at venerable Mayfair and Manhattan dealership Mallett continued at the end of 2015 with the departure of two senior executives.

Sotheby’s have announced that Mario Tavella, deputy chairman of Sotheby’s Europe and European head of single-owner collections, will become président directeur général of Sotheby’s France.

The market for traditional antiques ended 2015 on a high with a series of spectacular individual prices posted in London and New York in mid-December.

Phillips set a new high for Martinware with the sale of this 14in (36cm) high bird jar modelled as Benjamin Disraeli for a double-estimate $190,000 (£126,670).

As an introductory offer to their new saleroom near Poole, Cottees will be reducing both their seller’s commission and buyer’s premium to 10% (plus VAT) for the first three months of 2016.

Hansons of Etwall in Derbyshire posted a new house record in the closing days of 2015 with the sale of a 13in (32cm) high Qianlong (1736-95) mark and period famille rose vase for £300,000.

Sotheby’s are to make some 80 positions redundant as part of the company’s efforts to reduce costs.

A Union flag, by repute flown by one of Nelson’s warships at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, carries an estimate of £30,000-50,000 at sporting gun specialists Holt’s on March 17.

This gold and peacock blue enamel necklace designed by Archibald Knox sold for £31,000 at Mallams in Oxford.

Silver and jewellery with a total value of around £20,000 was stolen in a raid at Chilcotts auctioneers in Honiton, Devon, in the early hours of Friday, December 4.

Among the works drawing interest at the latest round of Old Master and British Paintings sales in London was Joseph Wright of Derby’s (1734-97) ‘A grotto in the gulf of Salerno...’.

Topping Bonhams Knightsbridge’s marathon nine-hour sale of items from Hooton Pagnell Hall in South Yorkshire was this 20½in x 2ft 5in (52 x 76cm) watercolour and gouache work by Paul Sandby (1730-1809).

A 1940s Rolex wristwatch whose RAF owner was murdered by the SS after the Great Escape has sold for £165,000 in Buckinghamshire.