News

Ah, nostalgia. Hear the words ‘Russian’ and ‘spying’ these days and ‘Novichok’ and ‘Polonium’ will come to mind. Try looking back instead to the 1970s-80s with the help of a large collection of Soviet cameras coming up at auction.

A pocket watch worn by Lord Nelson during the Battle of Trafalgar and probably given to him after his triumph at the Battle of the Nile is to be offered at auction next month.

Pop star-turned-fashion designer Victoria Beckham is displaying 16 Old Master paintings at her Dover Street store in Mayfair as part of a tie-up with auction house Sotheby’s.

The 100th anniversary year of women winning the right to vote in Britain (for those over 30, owning property, or university educated, anyway) has encouraged a bumper crop of related items at auction.

French institutions exercised their right of pre-emption on a number of occasions as the gargantuan disposal of the Aristophil collections of historic manuscripts began last week.

What’s a 10 hour taxi ride to a man who thinks he’s found a Ming dish? Why was the tragic marble visage of Queen Victoria worth more than £1m to the Fitzwilliam Museum? How to get the Antique Scientific Instrument Fair back on track? Trade members mull over these questions and more in our quotes of the week.

The postcard message reads: “I wish you were here, it is a lovely boat & it would do you good. Am just going on deck.” Actually, this wouldn’t have done much good at all: the boat in question was the Titanic.