Latest News Articles by Roland Arkell
Antiques Roadshow reins in ivory coverage
16 July 2014The BBC’s Antiques Roadshow will show fewer ivory objects in future programmes, but has stopped short of banning the valuation of antique ivory on screen.
Maori artefacts top regional tribal gathering
11 July 2014Maori boat-shaped feather boxes – or ‘waka huia’ – are infrequent visitors to UK salerooms so it was unusual to see two examples sold in close proximity this summer.
Hitting the suite spot at £42,000
04 July 2014An Arts & Crafts dining room suite made by the prominent Manchester designer Edgar Wood has sold for £42,000 at Gardiner Houlgate of Corsham near Bath.
Tiffany tea caddy draws bidding at Hansons
04 July 2014Discovered at a regional valuation day held in Shropshire by Hansons of Etwall, this Tiffany and Co. silver and mixed-media tea caddy had been a wedding gift and had remained in the family of the vendor since the 1920s.
Steiff ‘Titanic’ teddy tops latest sales in a bear market
04 July 2014The story goes that Steiff black mohair bears were produced as mourning bears after the Titanic disaster in April 1912.
Roman life in clay at £9500
27 June 2014The Roman artist Bartolomeo Pinelli (1781-1835) is best known as a prolific engraver, selling to tourists his prints portraying the everyday life and costumes of characters encountered in and around the Piazza della Rotonda.
Bantry House contents to be sold on the premises
27 June 2014Lyon & Turnbull are to sell the contents of Bantry House, County Cork, one of the best-known historic houses in the Republic of Ireland.
A £25,000 record for Irish flatware?
27 June 2014Seventeenth century Dublin trefid spoons are extremely scarce. Last year a single rat-tailed example by Andrew Gregory, 1685, sold for €9000 at Adams of Dublin.
Recalling Belperron’s wartime travails as single-owner collection sells out
27 June 2014Despite countless offers to leave France, Suzanne Belperron (1900-83) remained in German-occupied Paris throughout the Second World War – a jewellery maker and a Resistance fighter.
New York to ban ivory and rhino horn sales
25 June 2014New York is a step closer to adopting new restrictions on ivory after the State Assembly passed the bill to bar nearly all sales of elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn.
Martin Brothers bird flies to record £75,000
20 June 2014Knocking others off their perch, Salisbury’s Woolley & Wallis improved upon their own auction record for Martin Brothers with the £75,000 sale of this bird jar to Gloucestershire British art pottery dealers AD Antiques.
English delftware remembering a difficult year for George II – and the Queen’s teeth
20 June 2014The year 1737 was something of an annus horribilis for George II.
Fit for an emperor at £355,000
13 June 2014The most highly regarded piece of Chinese porcelain offered during the recent round of Asian sales was seen in Edinburgh where Lyon & Turnbull sold this blue and white dragon charger for £355,000.
Russian auctions shrug off politics
09 June 2014Despite the unhelpful backdrop of Ukraine politics and the threat of economic sanctions, the Russian art market continued on its mercurial journey in the first week of June. The characteristic patchy selling rates for the ‘Londongrad’ sales were accompanied by moments of remarkable competition.
The British camera that helped get pictures moving
06 June 2014It may not look much today, but this camera was the latest cutting-edge piece of technology when it was first released for sale in 1899 – and it helped lay the foundations for the future of film and moving pictures. Then it retailed for £30, now it has just sold at auction in Surrey by Lawrences of Bletchingley for £7800.
Rivals hoping to fill void left by Ivey-Selkirk in St Louis
03 June 2014Following the implosion of auction house Ivey-Selkirk earlier this year, more than one firm is hoping to plug the void left by the troubled St Louis institution.
On the £7500 scent of James Giles
03 June 2014Trading from the Arts Museum in Cockspur Street, the famous James Giles (1718-80) china and glass decorating atelier produced an enormous diversity of bijouterie for the London luxury trade.
Roadshow discovery heads to Christie’s
02 June 2014This portrait by Sir Anthony van Dyck, a spectacular discovery for the BBC’s ‘Antiques Roadshow’, will carry an estimate of £300,000-500,000 at Christie’s Old Master sale on July 8.
V&A launch a Rapid Response to contemporary collecting
30 May 2014A pair of Primark jeans, a 3D-printed gun and Katy Perry branded fake eyelashes are just a few of the objects that will go on display in a new gallery at the Victoria & Albert Museum this summer.
Art Deco classics ring a bell
09 May 2014Designed and manufactured by the Siemens factory in Woolwich from 1929, the 200 Series dial telephone (aka the Neophone) is today considered an Art Deco design classic and the first truly modern telephone.