Among the attractions at this year’s ‘Firsts: London’s Rare Book Fair’ on May 15-18 is the desk upon which Hilary Mantel wrote her celebrated ‘Wolf Hall’ trilogy. Fold the Corner Books, founded by ...

Silver spoons for the dining table have been around since antiquity - a much longer history than the table fork, which did not come into general use until the 18 th century. By this time spoons had ...

It was very much a local concern and local is the best word to describe the scope of factory and its wares, the geographical spread of its original clientele and, by and large, the nature of its ...

The years between the loss of the American colonies and George IV’s death in 1830 were the golden age for single-sheet political caricatures – bracketing the careers of two giants of the genre, James ...

After 1840, F. & R. Pratt of Fenton in Staffordshire, became the leading (but not the only) manufacturer of multicoloured transfer printed pot lids and a huge range of related wares. Long admired for ...

Sotheby's is staging a single-lot auction next month, offering copies of all four Shakespeare Folios. The set, which will be offered in London May 23 with an estimate of £3.5m-4.5m, is the first time ...

This self-portrait painted by Joseph Wright (1734-97) at the age o… ...

A group of 19 album leaves from the celebrated ‘Imperial Manual of Birds’ have been discovered in homes in Dorset and London. Roseberys has given the paintings, originally part of a natural history ...

The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has bought a 16th-century painting by Spanish Renaissance painter Luis de Morales (1509-86). It was acquired in a private sale from London dealer Daniel Katz ...

Dealer Les Enluminures has sold a ‘pioneering-feminist’ medieval manuscript to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

An archive of photographs, article notes and correspondence belonging to a Polish journalist documenting the Spanish Civil War sold above estimate at Doyle New York. Formed by Jan Winter (1907-1991), ...

A Victorian model of an RNLI lifeboat sailed past its £700-900 estimate to hammer down at £7500 (plu… ...