Auctioneers

Featured here are three photographic carte de visite portraits of American interest from an historical manuscripts and documents sale held in Dallas by Heritage (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium).

The most expensive piece in Sotheby’s Arnhold sale was a lot that made a dramatic increase on its $4000-6000 estimate. This 7½in (19.5cm) diameter blue and white saucer dish (below) was an early example of blue and white Meissen from c.1721-22 that had Japanese Palace inventory marks.

Original watercolours intended for pioneering, unpublished work are now highly valued

High selling rates at two American salerooms show how the market can absorb traditional ceramics in volume when estimates are realistic

Early-18th century porcelain scent bottles from Chelsea and the St James’s factory have been the object of increasing interest and value in recent years. Some high-flying examples emerged in the sales in New York.

Bid to £32,000 in a Gloucestershire auction was a 1599, first Latin edition of the Dutch traveller and explorer, Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s Navigatio ac itinerarium…

The huge and ongoing task of cataloguing thousands of cigarette cards and other ephemera from a deceased collector’s home – he had walls pasted with beer mats instead of wallpaper – paid off for Bristol auctioneer Gavin Aplin.

A group of “historically important” watercolour and pencil drawings of the London Blitz sparked a bidding war at Cirencester saleroom Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium).

An impressive piece of neoclassical silver gilt with an impressive provenance, this George III trophy was consigned to Gerrards (18% buyer’s premium) by a vendor whose great-grandmother had apparently been given it ‘by royalty’.

Our weekly selection from salerooms.

After their intitial interest in Wedgwood, the Starrs went on to collect other examples of early English porcelain, some of which was keenly pursued in Sotheby’s sale.

An impressive 23in (58cm) tall Sèvres vase offered by Shropshire auction house Trevanion & Dean (20% buyer’s premium) had a lot going for it historically but a considerable amount of condition problems.

The Starrs collection at Sotheby’s featured 25 reticulated vases or decorative objects produced by George Owen for Royal Worcester, most them purchased at auction in the early 1980s.

Two music-makers caught the eye, or rather ear, at Adam Partridge’s (20% buyer’s premium) Macclesfield sale.

Top-seller at the latest sale of Islamic and Indian Art and antiquities held at Roseberys (25% buyer’s premium) in West Norwood was a 19th century Sikh enamelled and diamond-set gold medal.

A selection of maps of US cities from recent auctions stateside.