UK

Two pieces of seating furniture which no early 20th century wealthy middle-class home would have lacked went comfortably over estimates at sales from Hampshire to Yorkshire in May.

London art and antiques galleries have been alerted to a scam that has seen at least four dealers preyed on by tricksters.

An exceptionally rare miniature book, a 'Kalendarium Evangelia' printed by Christopher Plantin in Antwerp in 1570, measuring just 35mm high appeared at a recent Bonhams sale.

A massive Burmantofts faience charger sold for £13,000 (plus 22% buyer’s premium) at Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury on June 22 – the highlight of a remarkable collection of more than 700 pieces by the Leeds factory.

“In order to prevent the further slaughter of Dublin citizens, and in the hope of saving the lives of our followers, now surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered, the members of the Provisional Governments present at Head Quarters have agreed to an unconditional surrender…”

Until its conversion into a pizzeria and cocktail bar three years ago, The Spread Eagle pub in Greenwich had hardly changed since its origins as a 17th century coaching inn.

It is tempting to write off 19th century pictures as passé. A field relegated to the dusty corners of the art market, while contemporary art reigns supreme.

Showing some internal staining, browning and other soiling, this 1517 Lyon printing of one of the works of GB Castiglione, a humanist and sometime tutor to the future Elizabeth I, sports a contemporary English binding of blind-stamped calf.

The antiquities trade’s packed summer schedule got off to a bright start at Sotheby’s (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) in London. The ancient art sale was the second to be held since the auction house reopened its London unit in 2016. Over the last two decades, Sotheby’s had sold ancient art through its New York saleroom only.

It is one week since doors opened to his new shop in the West Sussex village of Fittleworth and Joe Chaffer of Vagabond Antiques is in a whirl.

Catalogued as ‘after the antique’, this marble figure of Aphrodite was the unexpected star of Chiswick Auctions’ June 14 sale of antiquities and tribal art in London.

“I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon”. Arguably the most famous words in archaeological history, they were supposedly uttered by German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in 1876 as he unearthed a gold mask at Mycenae. Some 140 years later, portraits from antiquity remain powerful reminders of our ancient past.

Karen Taylor Fine Art’s exhibition of British drawings, watercolours and oils takes place from 30 June-July 7 at Illustrationcupboard Gallery in St James’s.

More 19th century pictures will go under the hammer this summer at auction houses in London. Christie’s dedicated sale in King Street on July 13 is led by a collection of 46 Orientalist works.

An exhibition of the photographs of Marilyn Stafford travelled from Lucy Bell Fine Art in East Sussex last weekend to reopen in London’s Art Bermondsey Project Space on Tuesday, June 27.

Consigned from a deceased estate, a 19th century oil of a popular Venetian view topped Mitchells’ (20% buyer’s premium) June 1 auction in Cockermouth, Cumbria.

Charles Ede has bowed out of this week’s Masterpiece London in favour of the trio of TEFAFs. ATG meets two of the directors to find out how a synthesis of ancient and modern can benefit this long-standing family firm.

A miners‘ lamp lit up bidding at a Cotswold saleroom to set a record for a George Stephenson model.

Walter Leblanc’s (1932-86) paintings and sculptures create illusions of movement through the manipulation of unconventional media. Originally from Antwerp, Leblanc started exhibiting with the ZERO movement in the early 1960s.

Some of the more successful lots in a June 1 sale at PBA Galleries (20/15% buyer’s premium) of the first portion of the Richard Beagle collection of angling and sporting books were scarce accounts of early hunting trips in the Yukon and Wyoming.