Purchased for £1 from a Hertfordshire charity shop earlier this year, a Qianlong (1736-95) famille rose wall vase […]
Author: Learn Antiques Team
A rare Qianlong celadon-glaze pear-shaped teapot has set a record for Asian art week this season selling at […]
A record for a copy of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species came at Hindman’s sale of […]
This early medieval gold ring dates to the time of the Crusades – its decoration of a five-fold […]
Jewellery owned by Marie Valerie Hapsburg, the favourite daughter of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, will be auctioned by […]
The whistle that blew after just a minute of play to signal the first penalty kick ever awarded […]
Pietro Perugino was born Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci. He came to be known as Il Perugino, the man from Perugia. In 1500, he was known as ‘the best master in Italy’. He was one of the first Italian artists to make use of oils, used in frescoes he created for the convent of the Ingessati. Perugino was also noteworthy for his portraits. His star pupil was Raphael. Their work was very similar, but the student eventually outshone the master. Later in life, Perugino had been laughed out of Florence as his style had become stale and repetitive. He returned to Perugia, where he continued to work. Despite a lifetime of painting religious images, he was a non-believer.
Code locked in a briefcase for two decades, a finely preserved, 1997 first issue of Harry Potter and […]
The modern market for Martin Brothers pottery has been defined by key exhibitions and the sales of important […]
Tom Mason’s collecting bug began when his father used to send him postcards and gifts from places he […]
A gilt bronze model of a buddha donated to a charity shop by a donor took a hammer […]
Hester Bateman happened to be the most famous English female silversmith of the 18th century. However, she had no education, which explains her ‘X’ signature and why many of Bateman pieces had been outsourced elsewhere from talented craftsmen. There is no single known Hester workpiece after 1760. Most of Hester’s pieces are over-stamped with their marks, meaning they were from other artists. Despite this, Hester was an adept businesswoman who learnt the smithing trade from her husband. The Bateman family had a catalogue of various silverwares that included flatware, serving dishes, inkwells and horse-racing trophies. Due to their quality, any antique silver made by Hester Bateman and her family is still very collectable today.
A letter written by the late Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) to an old school friend is being offered at […]
Christie’s latest ‘Classic week’ in New York raised a premium-inclusive $59.9m (£46.8m) from nine separate sales. Extracted from […]
Focusing on south-east Asia, a 90-lot map section in an Essex sale comprised the extraordinarily successful first portion […]
A buoyant specialist subject in its own right, studio pottery appeared at a number of the recent Design […]
A draft bill recommending further reform to the French auction system has passed through the Senate in Paris. Extracted […]
From November 26-28 Christie’s Paris will disperse part of the family library of the Comtesse Martine de Béhague […]