Pick of the Week

Ephemera, photos and, remarkably, a penguin egg relating to Captain Robert Scott’s ill-fated 'Terra Nova' Expedition to the Antarctic in 1910 were eagerly contested in the room, on the phone and online at Stroud Auction Rooms’ latest sale.

Auctions on New Year’s Day are a tradition in regional North America. The sale at Nadeau’s in Windsor, Connecticut, on the first day of 2019 included a collection of 17th and 18th century English silver that had been given to Yale University in 1896 in memory of a former alumnus, the Pennsylvania coal baron James Browne Neale.

“Every specialist has an object that they dream of having in their sales,” says Matthew Rubinger, Christie’s head of handbags and accessories. “For me, it’s the aluminium Explorer trunk by Louis Vuitton. The market is full of silver-coloured metal trunks, but this piece is their inspiration.”

A table designed by a teenaged Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-52) for Windsor Castle sold for £23,500 (plus 21% buyer’s premium) at Gorringe’s of Lewes on December 4.

The highlight of the latest series of Old Master sales in London was not a painting this time around but a rare work on paper by an enigmatic draughtsman.

Capping a vintage year for prime-period Mouseman furniture, a dining suite attracted huge interest when offered for sale in Yorkshire recently.

An unusual belt buckle by the Parisian jeweller and glass maker René Lalique which had been worn by the vendor throughout her nursing career has sold for £19,000 at a North Yorkshire auction.

Of all the types of playful drinking cups or trinkspiel made by Dutch and German goldsmiths during the 16th and 17th centuries, the example offered by Sotheby’s in Paris last week was surely the most elaborate.

Proof once more of the allure of market-fresh goods, the collection of Roger Soame Jenyns (1904-76) excelled at Christie’s Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art sale.

Among the most desirable of all needlework samplers are those associated with pupils of the orphanages, asylums and charity schools of the Georgian and Victorian eras.

Was this the gun that John James Audubon (1785-1851) used to create the world’s most expensive natural history book?

“A truly beautiful medal and a royal provenance make this something quite out of the ordinary. And, without hesitation, we can say that it is unique.” Stephen Fenton, specialist at Baldwin’s of St James’s, singled out a George IV accession medal as a highlight of the Peter Earthy collection.

Proof of a burgeoning market, a series of stellar results for British studio pottery were posted at the ‘Made in Britain’ sale conducted by Sotheby’s on Bond Street.

It was of early manufacture, looked beautiful and the condition was very good – but auctioneer Ben Rogers Jones admits to still being mystified as to why a paperweight sold for such a hefty price at his Cardiff saleroom.

Posters advertising the first-ever public screening of a film, which took place in Paris in 1895, have hardly ever emerged outside France. While one is known in an American collection, the appearance of another at Sotheby’s latest online film posters auction understandably caused some excitement.

Gary Arkell of Loddon Auctions was ready to toast a record-breaking success when lot 718 in the Berkshire saleroom’s latest auction sold for what is believed to be a record price for a beer label of £1500.

Early British army uniforms were the highlight of an extensive single-owner militaria collection amassed by a long-standing Nottinghamshire family which was offered at Stroud Auctions.

A ship painting by the artist regarded as the first great Trinidadian painter, Michel-Jean Cazabon (1813-88), surfaced for sale at Cumbrian auction house PFK earlier this month.

The Shropshire pottery, Maw & Co of Jackfield, is best known for the mass production of earthenware tiles and architectural ceramics.