Auctioneers

An album of 35 photographs relating to the Alaskan ‘Gold Rush’ of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries sold for £1900 rather than the estimate of £50-70 in a recent North Yorkshire sale.

There was no shortage of desirable names among the 1370-lot Fine & Decorative three-day sale at Kingham & Orme (23% buyer’s premium), such as Charles Ashbee, Omar Ramsden, Lalique, Christopher Dresser and William de Morgan.

With supply generally exceeding demand for Spode services – such was their abundance on tables of the 19th century middle class – prices at auction remain modest.

Long unseen material from the country home of an ancient English family brought some estimate-demolishing five-figure bids at Morphets (17.5% buyer’s premium) including a genuine sleeper.

Although championed by Stanley Spencer and the poet and critic Herbert Read, Francis Plummer (1930-2019) is a name few will have heard of.

First editions of all of Jane Austen’s major works featured in a sale last month held by Swann Galleries (25/20/12% buyer’s premium).

With just five of the 630 lots of toys and models failing to get away and an £80,000 total well above top hopes, Special Auctions Services’ Newbury sale was, said auctioneer Hugo Marsh, “just like the old days – even better”.

Three works selling at regional sales below £1500, including a Rosalie Emslie watercolour.

Two Italian Mannerist chalk drawings emerged as the top sellers in a section of Old Master drawings and prints at Cirencester saleroom Dominic Winter.

Paul Jenkins (1923-2012), an American Abstract artist and member of the New York School, was born in Kansas City. He worked at a ceramics factory in his youth, an experience that heavily influenced his tactile methods of painting.

Among the Antarctic lots in the Travel & Exploration sale at Bonhams, the outstanding result came for a group of three glass jugs with silver lids, rims and, in two cases, hanging labels marked 'Whiskey'.

Two alluring early-20th century British school portraits of attractive young women caught the eye in recent regional sales. Both modestly estimated, they brought similar four-figure sums.

Rare works in South Cerney sale document the formative years of the Bank of England

A c.1880 Doulton Lambeth stoneware tobacco jar and cover was one of the pleasant surprises at a recent David Duggleby (18.75% buyer’s premium) sale in Scarborough.

A valuation day in Tunbridge Wells led to the consignment of a late-16th century south German rosewood and bone gaming board at Catherine Southon.

Houstoun-Boswall consignment includes Robert Adam’s proposal for Scottish country house

Containing some 600 hand-coloured engraved plates, a set of Sowerby and De Carle’s 'The Mineral Conchology of Great Britain…' of 1812-29 was just another of the many attraction in a sale last month held by Lyon & Turnbull.