UK

An old photo of a former owner and a memorial inscription will seldom add commercial value to a Victorian locket. However, the example by the Phillips Brothers of Cockspur Street offered by Mallams (20% buyer’s premium) in Oxford on March 21 carried the inscription 'Julia Hay Norman, Died 3rd October 1873'.

Among the flurry of sales providing a welcome spring tonic for the trade generally, two weighted heavily towards furniture provided welcome encouragement.

This hyper-realist oil on canvas 'Orlando Furioso' was painted by Pierre Peyrolle in 1996 and is one of the collection of pictures by the artist included in La Profondeur de l’Artifice, the first exhibition for the French artist in the UK. It runs at the Tomasso Brothers’ London gallery until May 11.

The lone swimmer at the Brockwell Lido pictured here appears oblivious to what’s going on alongside the walkways.

An 18in (45cm) figure of Shiva Vinadhara c.12th century – £220,000.

A remarkable collection of around 4500 postcards relating to a wide range of aspects of Jewish life in the 19th and 20th centuries was the fascinating, and often sobering, centre of interest when offered by Norfolk auction house Horners (17% buyer’s premium).

Art Deco and Art Nouveau sculptures may be one of the categories most at risk under the impending ivory sales ban, but at the recent Antiques for Everyone Fair (April 5-8) a dealer in that field reported no change as a result.

Artist Mel Winning runs a reclamation business in the medieval market town of Manningtree in Essex.

On song at Stratford-upon-Avon, a late 19th century French automaton musical bird soared beyond the £1000-1500 estimate at Bigwood (19% buyer’s premium).

If a 74% selling rate points to continued selectivity among furniture bidders, the hammer total of £534,000 achieved at Dreweatts’ (24% buyer’s premium) 275-lot Fine Furniture and Works of Art sale showed they also have money to spend – “a trend we’ve seen for a while now”, said auctioneer Ben Brown.

The third Great Tisbury Brocante will run on the spring bank holiday, Monday, May 7, all through the streets of the Wiltshire town.

A hand-coloured design for Charles Voysey’s 'River Rug' surfaced at Lawrences of Crewkerne where it sold at £21,000 (plus premium).

This 19th century French walnut chest of drawers, offered at Ewbank’s (22.5% buyer’s premium) Surrey rooms, sold at £5500.

Eight years ago textiles dealers Liz van Hasselt and Clare Powell came up with the idea of holding a monthly vintage bazaar in the Somerset market town of Frome, which has a cluster of vintage shops on Catherine Hill.

Unlike other European jewellers, where designers and makers were often shrouded in anonymity, the Georg Jensen Co promoted its craftspeople and encouraged them to become names in their own right.

When the opportunity arose to sell a small group of pictures by obscure local artist Bernard Myers (1925-2007), Krassi Kuneva of Chiswick Auctions (15/12% buyer’s premium) seized the chance.

Running to 600 lots and achieving £560,000 hammer, a recent London sale incorporated a wide range of collecting fields, from Dickensian theatrical ephemera to children’s books and all things Irish.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.