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A recent court case in New York has reinforced the importance of the often overlooked issue of artists’ moral rights.

It took over 15 minutes to sell, but when the gavel finally came down at £26.5m the Raphael from Chatsworth had become the second most expensive Old Master ever sold at auction – and the priciest drawing of all time.

Back in 1998 Lacy Scott & Knight of Bury St Edmunds were instructed by local art teacher and model enthusiast John Clibbon to sell the majority of a large collection of tinplate toys.

Leica cameras proved one of the must-have auction prizes in recent sales with record prices at Westlicht in Vienna and Bonhams Hong Kong.

With London now accustomed to high levels of spending by private Russian buyers, the latest auctions in this sector once again produced some eye-catching prices for particular lots.

A pair of 2ft 3in (71cm) high Elkington & Co cloisonné vases with ornate ormolu mounts will be offered on December 13-14 by Cheshire auctioneers Adam Partridge.

Fellows of Birmingham will include paintings from the studio of portraitist Howard James Morgan (b.1949) in their next sale on December 11.

A gold sword that belonged to the bodyguard of Empress Catherine II of Russia is estimated at £40,000-60,000 in Thomas Del Mar’s December 5 Antique Arms, Armour and Militaria sale in West Kensington, London.

This Nathaniel Mills presentation snuff box was given to Isambard K. Brunel and will be included in Jones & Jacob’s sale on December 5 in Watlington, Oxfordshire.

A pair of Queen Victoria’s silk black stockings complete with royal monograms is up for sale at Holloway’s of Banbury on December 4.

‘Peculiar’ and ‘eerie’ seem the best words to describe the works of Algernon Newton (1880-1968).

A gilt christening cup given by Lawrence of Arabia to the son of the real-life Peter Pan is to be sold at Sworders on December 4.

In December, Wellers’ Guildford saleroom will offer a seminal suite of furniture by Ambrose Heal (1872-1959) consigned by a member of the family who purchased it at the turn of the 20th century.

Christie’s have won a High Court bid in Hong Kong to prevent another auction house benefiting from using a name that was sufficiently close to theirs to cause confusion.

A gang of robbers wearing ‘Halloween’ type masks and dressed all in black got more than they bargained for when staff at the well-known Hemswell Antiques Centre fought back to foil their raid.

A portable writing desk once owned by George Eliot is still missing after being stolen from Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery.

New rules could “virtually kill the movement of historic arms” between countries “stone dead” and have a drastic impact on military collections, according to the Museums Association (MA).

Two television programmes are in the pipeline to raise awareness of the ‘Save Cork Street’ campaign, as the Mayfair street’s art galleries continue their fight against redevelopment plans.

The toast of November’s clutch of Asian art sales was not to be found in London or Salisbury but in Leyburn.

This Märklin 0 gauge 20 volt electric train is a model of the ‘Earl Marischal’ (no 2002), a LNER P2 Mikado 2-8-2 locomotive built in 1935 to pull passenger trains on the Edinburgh/Aberdeen line.