Auctions

Bought for just £40 last year, two rare bronze buttons designed by Alberto Giacometti for Elsa Schiaparelli hammered for £48,000 at the latest Modern Decorative Art & Design sale at Bonhams Knightsbridge.

An Adelie penguin egg collected by Herbert Ponting (1871-1935) on the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition came for sale in Nantwich on January 8.

A scarce copy of Beatrix Potter’s 'The Fairy Caravan' sold for £3000 in Tennants’ (24% buyer’s premium) Books, Maps & Manuscripts Sale.

One of the eight York Rose brooches given by Prince Albert to the bridesmaids who attended his marriage to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923 sold for £15,000.

This carved wooden tobacconist figure or ‘Cigar Indian’ came to Ewbank’s (25% buyer’s premium) auction in Send, Surrey, by descent through the vendor’s family.

As he died more than a decade before the medium really took off, very few photographs of the American author Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) exist.

A rare first edition of Enid Blyton’s first published book, Child Whispers, hammered at £1400 in the Thomson Roddick (20% buyer’s premium) book sale on December 4.

A handsome 19th century brass boat tiller hammered for $15,000 (£11,235) at Zevantiques (25% buyer’s premium) in Hallandale, Florida.

Expect records to tumble in the market for Indian art and antiques in 2026.

Not that many footballers can be “as deeply woven into Leicester City and Scarborough football history as Colin Appleton (1936-2021)”, it is true.

Did you know that Great Britain are still the Olympic tug of war champions? The City of London Police Team competed for GB in the 1920 Antwerp Olympics, winning gold – and the category has not appeared since at a Games.

This imposing pair of 3ft 8in (1.09m) high hexagonal form vases combine both early 19th century Chinese and later 19th century French craftsmanship.

Auctioneer finds out there are two variations of the 1875 guide, but a record is achieved nevertheless

Prompted by the uniform penny post and the new printing process of chromolithography, the Victorian era was the heyday of the Christmas card.

Lurking among the equestrian portraits in a sale held by The Sporting Art Auction (17.5% buyer’s premium) was an atypical work by Sir Alfred Munnings (1878-1959).

A recent sale marked the first time that the Geneseo, New York, house Cottone Auctions (22% buyer’s premium) has handled a piece of René Lalique (1860-1945) jewellery.

A group of works by George Richmond (1809-96) offered at auction at the end of last year showed plenty of life remains in the market for the London-born painter.

A Japonisme foo dog vase by Émile Gallé (1846-1904) hammered for $35,000 (£26,440) against a guide of $3000-5000 at Rago (27% buyer’s premium) in Lambertville, New Jersey.

Doulton figures and jugs depicting the famous and not-so-familiar include sought-after rarities

Little is known about Soiree Cigarettes or the firm behind them and it is only thanks to the collectable cards it issued in Mauritius that its name appears in web search results today.