Auctioneers

London’s Russian week of auctions put in a consistent performance last week with the sales at four salerooms generating a combined £37.5m with fees. This compared to £39.2m for the equivalent series last year and the £35.8m raised at the June series.

This classic mail coach scene by the 19th century painter James Pollard (1792-1867) doubled pre-sale hopes in a picture auction at Surrey saleroom John Nicholson’s (25% buyer’s premium).

A spate of early to mid-20th century portraits of society figures and important personalities generated stiff competition at UK sales in London and the regions.

Pictured here is a selection of notable Old Master results from recent sales in Cologne and Munich where international bidders battled with German dealers and collectors.

HRH Princess Anne visited auction house Sworders in Stansted Mountfitchet to mark the start of a campaign to raise funds for a local charity that is building a specialist autism service in Essex.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales including an Anne Redpath cityscape.

Containing numerous diagrams, a manuscript manual on 18th century shipbuilding techniques and practices sold for £3600 in a recent sale.

Plenty of opportunities were available to purchase Old Master or 19th century works for more affordable prices across Paris last month. Pictured here are three works from recent auctions.

Extinct for 65 million years, dinosaurs continue to rule the world of children visiting the National History Museum, of multi-million dollar movie makers – and of bidders at the Evolution Sales at Summers Place Auctions (25% buyer’s premium).

“Try a glass of Old Bushmills whiskey, your majesty, it is the whiskey all connoisseurs drink”. Not only that, but it seems this royally promoted tipple was “… recommended by Doctors in cases of Gout and Rheumatism as the most helpful drink”.

Collectors who missed out on a rare late 19th century cabin trunk at auction last week have the chance to buy another in West Sussex this coming Friday.

A 1637 first edition of 'New English Canaan…' was one of the homegrown highlights of a sale held by Christie’s New York (25/20/13.5% buyer’s premium).

This rare sampler, just 6in (15cm) across, was completed by a girl from the Queens Orphan School in Van Diemen’s Land (the island of Tasmania) in 1838.

Exuding the exuberant confidence of pre-1914 Britain, this 21in (52cm) long silver table centrepiece, below, was a natural target for the London trade at the Anthemion (17.5% buyer’s premium) November 20 sale in Cardiff.

When this portrait of a young woman was first exhibited in the early 1930s, critics remarked on its “intensity and vital quality”, “the charming head” and the “wonderful life-like expression”.

Losses narrowed for stamps, coins and medals business Stanley Gibbons in the six months to September 30.

Old Masters are much to the fore in the calendar across Europe at this time in the auction season.

Personal devotional prayer books, known as a Book of Hours, were popular among the wealthy and powerful in late medieval Europe. Illuminated with miniature paintings depicting the life of Christ, the Virgin Mary and saints, they were sometimes personalised for the patrons who commissioned them.

The Bordoni and the Luini were not the only strong results achieved in the Drouot auction centre in the November sales.