Auction Reports

It was during the Song dynasty that tea parties became the vogue and tea houses flourished.

Typically, the work of studio potter Joanna Constantinidis (1927-2000), for nearly 40 years a lecturer in ceramics at Chelmsford Technical College and School of Art, has tended to occupy the second tier of the burgeoning contemporary ceramics market.

Power of the Force line was launched as the original Star Wars began to lose its shine but rarest figures still bring demand

The top-selling lots at Hansons’ April 1 Fine Art Sale were two pieces of Chinese blue and white porcelain.

To mark the new range of Star Wars toys that came with the release of Return of the Jedi in 1983, the Leicester firm Palitoy commissioned a series of hand-built and hand-painted store displays to send to some of its best retailers.

This large oak Orientalist carving, 'Eastern Slave Girl', is by the Victorian woodcarver Thomas Henry Kendall.

This 13in (33cm) ormolu vase candelabrum is a candidate for the earliest English neoclassical metalwork.

Pair sold at Somerset saleroom spark a debate on where and when they were made

A medal awarded to a member of the only Canadian battalion composed of black soldiers to serve in the First World War has sold in a London auction.

As famous last words go, those of Major General John Sedgwick in the American Civil War take some beating.

This Victorian cased diorama of birds of paradise native to New Guinea sold for £18,000 to lead Tennants’ (22% buyer’s premium) Natural History and Taxidermy sale in Leyburn on April 20.

A Queen Anne treen nutcracker proved popular at auction.

The Islamic and Indian Art sale at Bonhams (27.5/25/20/14.5% buyer’s premium) on March 29 was topped by a diamond and emerald set gold pendant from the collection of Maharani Jindan Kaur (1817-63).

The March 30-31 sale at Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium) in Wisborough Green included three pieces from the Royal Crown Derby Judge Gary service.

Carved from the heart of the toa or ironwood tree, long pole clubs with scalloped blades (akatara) are associated with Rarotonga and Atiu on the Cook Islands.

On April 9, Chilcotts (21% buyer’s premium) in Honiton, Devon, offered 25 lots of Heal’s limed oak furniture from a single property.

Estimated at £25,000-40,000, this 15th century Istrian marble wellhead in the late Gothic style sold for £110,000 at Summers Place Auctions (25/20% buyer’s premium) in West Sussex on March 29.

China trade wares attract significant bidding at Dreweatts

Toadstones are understood to be the button-like palatal teeth of lepidotes, an extinct genus of ray finned fish from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

While the market for post-war wares by Thompson’s of Kilburn – particularly the animal and figure carvings – has grown substantially in recent years, the ‘prime period’ for Mouseman collecting remains the 1920s-30s.