Auctioneers

An extraordinary relic of the African slave trade was among the headline lots from a three-day sale held by Lockdales in Martlesham Heath near Ipswich last month.

The most stunning price of London’s summer auction season came at Christie’s last week when the competition that emerged on ‘Love among the Ruins’ by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-98) was one of the strongest ever seen for a Victorian picture.

Drawn from life at Nelson’s home, Merton, just weeks before the Battle of Trafalgar, this pastel portrait by the marine artist John Whichelo sold for £52,000 at Sotheby’s.

An extraordinary cache of 2794 Victorian farthings, all dated 1890, of the same type, and generally all in glorious mint state, have been consigned as lot 680 to Woolley & Wallis’s upcoming Silver and Collectors’ sale in Salisbury.

Eton College is now the new home of the world’s most expensive football programme.

Even in the collecting field of the ‘heroic age’ of Polar exploration where items reflecting incredible stories of human endurance seem to come thick and fast, there are still some that really take the breath away.

Strong competition for a number of key works gave a major lift to the latest round of Old Master auctions in London.

Auctioneers Frank Marshall of Knutsford and Wright Manley of Beeston, both in Cheshire, have announced that they are to merge.

This remarkable 1773 longcase clock by Hugh Lough of Penrith proved the top-selling lot at Mitchells of Cockermouth when it sold at £19,000.

This c.1614 polychrome alabaster sculpture lost from a London church during the Blitz has been returned to its original location.

Sotheby’s have issued a robust defence of the British Postal Museum & Archive in the wake of strong criticism of the decision to sell off a tranche of its stamp collection valued at up to £5m.

Fred Williams’ ‘You Yangs Landscape 1’ of 1963 made the highest price of the 89-lot sale of Australian art from the Reg Grundy and Joy Chambers-Grundy collection when it sold for Aus$1.9m (£1.2m).

The two-day House & Garden Sale at Mallams in Abingdon, Oxfordshire saw this near pair of early 20th century Louis Vuitton ‘malle armoire secretaires’ sell for £24,000.

He may have conquered much of Europe, but time waits for no man, as Napoleon found out on May 5, 1821.

This stoneware bird jar dated 1891 established a new auction record for Martin Brothers when it made £67,000 at the latest Arts and Crafts sale held by Woolley & Wallis.

A painting of a Venetian palace by Claude Monet (1840-1926) led the latest round of Impressionist and Modern art auctions in London.

Abstinence was a ceremonial requirement prior to worshipping the ancestors, the heavens or other deities in the Qing court.

Setting a major house record at South London auctioneers Rosebery’s, this oil painting by Léon Bakst (1866-1924) drew eight interested parties at the West Norwood saleroom last week.

Work has begun on an £8m expansion at Tennants which will provide three new salerooms.

What must be one of the most iconic racing cars ever to come up for sale will be offered by Bonhams at the Goodwood Festival of Speed on July 12.