Auctions

This framed wood panel decorated in gold, silver and red lacquer with a pair of spiny lobsters on a rocky outcrop is signed 'Gyoen Hachijuni O Koma Zeshin' (An old man in his 82nd year, Kona Zeshin) and dated 1888.

The latest version of Christie’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) Collector sale in New York featured an interesting collection of equine pottery: an ensemble of 10 large-scale English pearl ware horses, the majority made in the Leeds pottery in the first half of the 19th century.

At an uncertain time bidders are assertive when the best and not the rest comes up at auction.

Plague water is one of the more striking entries in a now worn but finely bound volume of cookery and medical recipes sold recently in London.

Works by Namikawa Yasuyuki underline how buyers are aiming at the very best when it comes to the Japanese market ahead of a series of UK sales.

Some early Chinese objects are included in the Timeline Auctions sale in Harwich, Essex on May 28.

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.

Included in a mixed-discipline sale held in Paris by Daguerre (28% buyer’s premium inc VAT) at Drouot was a Sèvres bough pot in soft paste porcelain.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales below £900, including a watercolour view of Cliveden House.

Bought by a German collector for €115,000 (£99,140) at an auction in Cologne, a 15th century illustrated account of 'Leben der Heiligen Altväter', or ‘Lives of the Holy Fathers’, was a great rarity.

Estimated at £300-500, a finely decorated Qing famille rose pen box and cover was knocked down for £33,000 at a recent sale at John Nicholson’s (25% buyer’s premium).

A Chinese ‘sleeper’ emerged in a Vintage and General Sale at Gardiner Houlgate (20% buyer’s premium), Corsham, near Bath on April 25 courtesy of a textbook ‘scholar’s’ object.

Duke’s Asian sale on May 20 includes this Wanli (1572-1620) mark and period wucai ‘zun’ altar vase.

Last November Roseberys in London sold a set of 16 paintings on silk by Kim Jun Keun, better known by his artistic name Kisan, for a surprise £40,000.

The highlight of a dedicated ceramics sale held at Drouot by Fraysse (22.17% buyer’s premium) was this large 16 x 22in (41 x 56cm) early French, Moustiers, faience basin made at the Clerissy factory.