Bonhams

A raft of contents sales from grand English estates is coming up this autumn.

Arguably the most eyecatching bidding battle at the latest London Old Master series was for a painting of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Bonhams is to offer what it calls ‘the finest collection of Welsh treen ever presented’ for auction next month.

This summer was something of a feast when it came to the Modern British art auctions in London.

A small group of highly personal works by Henry Lamb (1883-1960) provided an intriguing insight into his life and work at the Modern British art sales at Bonhams this summer.

Only two examples of this 11in (28cm) Sèvres biscuit porcelain bust of Napoleon’s son, Napoléon-François-Charles-Joseph Bonaparte (1811-32), are known.

This glass tumbler, pictured below, engraved with a crowned 'N' over a band of diamond cutting, contained in a tooled leather cylindrical travelling case, is of a type that accompanied Napoleon on campaign.

Bianca Cutait has joined Bonhams as a senior specialist for the Post-War & Contemporary art department, based in Miami (also with a focus on Latin America).

This unusual Grand Tour paperweight shown here is made from fragments of Roman mosaic, millefiori, spiral twist and reticelli glass.

For reasons of both supply and economics not every collector of English 18th century drinking glasses gets to own a piece from the great Beilby enamelling workshop that operated at Amen Corner in Newcastle in the 1760s-70s.

Austrian auction house Dorotheum will open a new office in Hamburg providing valuations and exhibitions. The office will be run by Dr Catherine, Princess of Sayn-Wittgenstein, who joins as the new managing director of Dorotheum Germany and new director of Dorotheum Hamburg.

Sealed examples with coats of arms, names, dates and places reveal a social history and give an ideal opportunity for genealogical research

Two Rolex tool watches were estimated to bring £80,000-120,000 each at a recent Fine Watches sale at Bonhams’ (27.5/25% buyer’s premium).

Although he initially specialised in small furnishing objects and statuettes, the Parisian bronzier Victor Paillard (1805-86) began exhibiting with more elaborate creations in the 1840s.

ATG reports on the market for the Enicar series of watches that were taken to Everest