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Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

MADAM – Your new year’s resolutions piece (ATG No 2374) was thought-provoking, citing aspirations and concerns reflecting the current art and antiques market.

Among the first women potters recognised by the public as individual designers worthy of collecting were Hannah Barlow (1851-1916) and her sister Florence. The first women artists at Doulton’s Lambeth factory, they joined in 1871 and 1873 respectively.

Topping a number of good pre-Christmas clock sales was a rare table/bracket clock, among the last made by London ‘Golden Age’ name Daniel Quare (1649-1724) with Stephen Horseman, who became his partner at the Exchange Alley workshop in 1721.

A trademark nocturnal scene by Victorian painter John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-93) got away on low estimate for £80,000 at John Nicholson’s (25% buyer’s premium) of Haslemere in Surrey.

A 1627, Ulm first of Johannes Kepler’s 'Tabulae Rudolphinae…', an important astronomical work named in honour of the then Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II, sold for SKr350,000 (£30,535) on December 7.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from January 15-31, 2019.

Christmas has little, if any, effect on collectors of vintage and antique toys, but that doesn’t stop auctioneers mounting festive season specials.

'A Book of Songs and Poems from the Old Testament and the Apocrypha', the Ashendene Press book of 1904 shown below, has in the past made as much as £2000 at auction.

Produced by Raphael Tuck & Sons c.1900, ‘Puppies Playtime’ is one of a pair of greeting card see-saws that sold for £140 in the book and ephemera section of a December 15 sale held by Lacy Scott & Knight (20% buyer’s premium).

The drive by, among others, the Royal Academy and the National Gallery to promote women’s importance in art would have required little effort had campaigners looked at the world of modern ceramics.

For many years New York’s major salerooms mounted auction series of Old Master paintings, drawings and sculpture in the first months of the year immediately following their Americana series.

The laws surrounding antiques made with the parts of endangered species are subject to frequent change. Kim McDonald of The Taxidermy Law Company provides a refresher guide...

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period January 3-9, 2019. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

Illustrations offered as part of an online Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium) sale held in early December included a couple of Arthur Rackhams.

Inscribed to a fellow dramatist, a presentation copy of the 1933 first of Nathaniel West’s classic black comedy, Miss Lonelyhearts, did exceptionally well at Christie’s New York (25/20/12.5%).