International

A record for a female Old Master and a Rubens with a royal connection was not quite enough to heat up bidding across the latest Old Master auction series in New York this winter.

This mid-19th century cruet stand is one of several lots of English silver to be offered by Clarke Auction Gallery in Larchmont, New York, on February 10.

A small but select auction of just 44 lots of paintings spanning 500 years from Old Masters to 20th century works will go under the hammer at Freeman’s on February 27.

Small in scale and relatively light on the purse, buttons are a rich collecting seam that many can mine.

ATG has learned that the collection of rare Danish silver advertised on two pages of ATG No 2359 as stolen has been returned to its owner.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from February 5-14, 2019.

A collection of 18 bronzes of thoroughbred racing horses by major French animalier sculptors is to be offered at Drouot on February 22 by Beaussant-Lefėvre. They include examples by Isadore Bonheur, Pierre-Jules Mène and Emmanuel Fremiet.

A “legendarily rare first edition” of the first book to describe the workings of a stock exchange sold at a high-estimate $300,000 (£238,095) in the days leading up to Christmas.

Included in Cordier Auctions’ large mixed-discipline sale to be held in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on February 9 will be a group of four clocks that once came from the Chicago dealer Lee Benkendorf.

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.

An auction record for a British coin was set in New York when a 1703 Vigo five guineas piece sold at $900,000 (£703,000) – $1.08m (£845,000) including premium. The sale was conducted by Baldwin’s of St James’s as part of The New York Premier Sale in Manhattan on January 13.

The precise function of the series of English tin-glazed earthenware seated cat jugs common to the 1650s-70s is unknown but, as many are dated and initialled, they may have been given as marriage or betrothal gifts.