Auctions

A new auction high for a ski poster was established at Christie’s South Kensington’s annual Ski sale, held on January 21, when this 1934 colour lithograph advertising the attractions of the Swiss resort of Gstaad sold for £62,000 (plus premium).

Leading auctioneers in Ireland and Scotland enjoyed a solid, if unspectacular, year of sales in 2015.

Among the works drawing interest at the latest round of Old Master and British Paintings sales in London was Joseph Wright of Derby’s (1734-97) ‘A grotto in the gulf of Salerno...’.

The owner of the Bourne Mill Antiques Centre, devastated by fire last month, is hopeful the lower part of the building can reopen later this month.

Topping Bonhams Knightsbridge’s marathon nine-hour sale of items from Hooton Pagnell Hall in South Yorkshire was this 20½in x 2ft 5in (52 x 76cm) watercolour and gouache work by Paul Sandby (1730-1809).

A 1940s Rolex wristwatch whose RAF owner was murdered by the SS after the Great Escape has sold for £165,000 in Buckinghamshire.

Paul César Helleu (1859-1927) is best known for his Belle Epoque portraits of beautiful society women.

A 21in (53cm) pair of late 19th century Meissen figures emblematic of Day and Night after the models by Heinrich Schwabe were sold by Bonhams in support of West Dean College’s full-time ceramics conservation programme.

Dr John C Taylor, the horologist, inventor and clockmaker, has been given the Harrison Medal by the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers for his services to horology.

Sotheby’s will rekindle their connections with former director John Winter this month thanks to a 186-lot single-owner sale in New Bond Street.

This 11 x 7in (29 x 20cm) Tête de Femme by Alexej Von Jawlensky is one of over 170 works by a roster of some of the biggest names in modern and contemporary art that will feature in a two-part single-owner sale to be held by Tajan in Paris next week.

A growing market for silver from the sub-continent culminated in a bid of £11,500 for this 9in (23cm) early 20th century Burmese bowl by Maung Yin Maung of Rangoon.

A pair of royal portraits by the Spanish artist Miguel Jacinto Meléndez (1679-1734) go on sale at auction in Madrid this month.

A major fire has caused significant damage to Bourne Mill Antiques Centre, home to about 70 dealers in Farnham, Surrey.

Two versions of a celebrated German majolica tureen appeared for sale in a matter of weeks – both bringing sterling prices in an otherwise soft market for 19th century ceramics.

A simple pencil message on a wooden sextant case sold at a London auction tells a story of desperate shipwrecked sailors adrift in a dinghy and running out of food and water.

The primary draw to the regions – rather than London – during last week’s glut of Asian works of art sales was the auction titled ‘In Pursuit of the Scholar’s Spirit’ conducted by Duke’s of Dorchester.

Christie’s have announced major changes to their antiquities sales calendar in London and New York.

A lifeline has been thrown to the 60 dealers at the Gloucester Antiques Centre on Gloucester Quays which closed earlier this month with six weeks’ notice given to quit.