Sotheby's

The most important example of Qing glassware to appear at auction sold for HK$180m (£18m) – the highlight of Sotheby’s recent series in Hong Kong.

A feast of English and Continental ceramics will be laid on in the Big Apple next week to tempt enthusiasts for classic 18th and 19th century pottery and porcelain from two of the major factories of western Europe.

Banksy’s derisive portrayal of The House of Commons reduced to an assembly of primates achieved a record £8.5m (plus premium) in Sotheby’s Contemporary Art auction on October 3.

Sotheby’s opened its September Asia Week auctions in New York on September 10 with the $8.3m sale of Chinese art consigned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Very different works by Daniel Defoe featured in an online summer sale in London: one famous, the other far removed in its subject matter and probably little known.

Almost exactly contemporary, the two works featured here came from the library of Christian Heuer and were offered as part of a July 1-9 summer sale at Sotheby’s (25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium). Both are distinguished by the observations of their authors.

The highest prices recorded in a Space Exploration sale on July 20 were for video recordings and documents relating to the Apollo 11 mission that featured the first moon landing, but a much earlier, fictional account of a lunar expedition also impressed.

“The wayfarer, as he reached him, saluted with a gesture of courtesy that had something foreign about it”.

Lots offered towards the start of sales at the same auction house prove successful.

Two French scenes by much-travelled husband-and-wife artists Ethel Carrick (1872-1952) and Emanuel Phillips Fox (1865-1915) are highlights of Sotheby’s sale of Australian Art to be held in Sydney on August 27.

Published in 1851 by Richard Bentley as The Whale, the first English edition of Herman Melville’s tale preceded the American issue by four weeks.