Oceania

The UK and Australia have a strong connection, highlighted by commemorations such as the recent Anzac Day (April 25) to remember Australian and New Zealand soldiers who fought in the First World War.

Bonhams Australia is holding its first auction behind closed doors in Sydney on May 13 with bidding online and by phone.

Sotheby’s has undergone a restructure following the purchase of the auction house by telecoms businessman Patrick Drahi earlier this year.

A pair of Wedgwood kangaroo figures brought to the recent AAADA Antiques & Art Fair Sydney by The Antique Guild proved appropriately attractive to buyers.

Selection of contents from Sydney house of media family comes to auction in Australia

Many of the high prices achieved at last week’s ‘celebrity’ sale titled Bob Hawke & Blanche d’Alpuget: Mementos, Curiosities, Art and Design reflected the impact of souvenir hunters, anxious to own a reminder of Australia’s former prime minister who died earlier this year. But not all of them.

Works by the Irish artist Paul Henry (1877-1958) appear frequently in Irish and UK salerooms but it is far more unusual for a painting by the Belfast-born painter – whose favoured subject matter was views of the west of Ireland – to emerge in Australia.

It was decades after the First Fleet landed in Sydney cove in 1788 before anything like a recognisable silver trade developed in Australia, writes Jolyon Warwick James.

Our ATG reporters travel far and wide to bring you the best coverage of art and antiques... pictured here is Dealers’ Diary writer Frances Allitt in Brisbane, Australia.

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.

A library focused on Antarctic exploration gave a New Zealand saleroom one of its more successful book and manuscript auctions since the company’s foundation in 2011.

The famous Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba once owned this pair of ‘Dragon and Phoenix’ bottle vases which were sold at auction from her estate in 2015.

A collection of Antarctic books from the library of the author, explorer and historian Richard Reaney is to offered by Art and Object on April 11 in New Zealand.

Gold rush era jewellery from Down Under is a rare visitor to UK salerooms but, remarkably, several pieces have appeared for sale in recent months.

Lots relating to explorer Matthew Flinders are particularly topical given that his grave has just been re-discovered in a graveyard under Euston station as part of works for the HS2 high-speed railway line.

A London scene by an important Modern British painter will be offered at Deutscher and Hackett in Sydney on November 28.