A pair of comfortable Gonse chairs brought last year’s sales to a splendid end, with Old Master drawings set to star at auctions and fairs early in 2026

The sale of a Fabergé imperial egg and a 15th-century triptych made headlines last year, but one of the most powerful pieces was a painting by Richard Parkes Bonington showing what he could have become, had he not died so young

“Johannes Vermeer is the most laconic of the Dutch old masters,” Andrew Graham-Dixon once remarked, adding that this “may explain why he has been the cause of so much volubility in others”. A quarter

Rufus Bird says the “masterpiece market” drives growth

Rarely does a ‘working’ diamond tiara come up for sale, so interest sky-rocketed when a tiara worn by Virginia Fortune Ryan Ogilvy – Dowager Countess of Airlie and Lady of the Bedchamber to the late Q

Best books… Roy Foster The emeritus professor of ...