Features

Summer is finally here, so it’s time to pit your arts and antiques brains against the ATG giant prize crossword. Winner takes home a bottle of champagne.

The prize lot sold at a recent Hermann Historica (25% buyer’s premium) sale in Munich was this 19th century Ottoman kilij of characteristic form with a curved blade swelling towards the tip.

The outstanding lot in the arms and armour sale held in London on June 30 by Thomas Del Mar (25% buyer’s premium) was the £96,000 16th century Augsburg close helmet illustrated on the front page of last week’s ATG (No 2501).

Among the properties included in the June Thomas Del Mar sale was the McEwen collection of bows and associated items which proved unexpectedly popular raising £30,000, around four times its top estimate.

Three pistol lots came to the fore at a recent sale at Bonhams (27.5/25/20/14.5% buyer’s premium) in London.

The German Maxim machine gun was used to devastating effect on Allied troops during the First World War.

A premium-inclusive total of £1.5m was achieved at Holts’ (25/20% buyer’s premium) summer auction in Norfolk, the third consecutive sale held with no one bidding in the room because of Covid restrictions.

Two lots from the March 30 live online auction held by Antony Cribb (22% buyer’s premium) of Newbury are shown here.

Once the humble playthings of boys the world over, airguns now attract a keen collector following.

Very soon after the gun was invented men were trying to find ways of speeding up the process of reloading powder and shot to obtain a superior rate of fire.

London-made flintlocks with a solid provenance to Alexander Hamilton took to the stage at US sale

A set of remarkable wine glasses that had remained in the same family since the 18th century was one of the highlights among quality items in two sales.

Back in 1990, following a famous and much-repeated Henry Sandon valuation on BBC Antiques Roadshow, a late 17th century slipware owl jug and cover was acquired by the Potteries Museum in Stoke-on-Trent for £22,000.

These two teapots – among the top-selling lots at the Woolley & Wallis (25/12% buyer's premium) sale of English and European Ceramics and Glass on June 16 – came for sale from the family of Lady Kate Davson, known to many by her maiden name of Kate Foster (1938-2020).

A single coffee can from the Baltic Service was among the highlights of Hansons’ (25% buyer’s premium) sale on June 9, selling to a collector at £2000.

Some exceptional pieces of Lowestoft featured in Bonhams’ (27.5/25% buyer’s premium) sale on June 23 – many of them from a single vendor.

This splendid Leeds pearlware horse, c.1810, was one of two offered at Christie’s (25/20/14.5% buyer’s premium) on June 8 as part of a sale that combined property from seven titled vendors.

Enjoy a brief trip down memory lane as we look back on 2500 editions of ATG and prepare for our 50th anniversary in September

Described recently in a How To Spend It article in the Financial Times as a “part sleuth, part therapist and part miracle worker… a modern master of illumination”, Simon Gillespie runs a team of seven conservators, restorers and specialists in his studio above New Bond Street in central London.

Ceri House is an artist and restorer and currently works with Nick Shipton and the Brothership Studio team in Hertford.