Auction Review: May 2026

There was a great and varied range of furniture on offer at our first auction of the month, featuring everything from G Plan bedroom furniture to an antique parquetry worktable, alongside an impressive collection by furniture maker Arthur Brett. The top lot of the day, however, was a Liberty & Co. clock by Manx designer Archibald Knox.

There was no shortage of excitement at the British & European Fine Art auction. We began the day with five highly sought-after paintings by Mary Fedden, each selling above estimate following fierce bidding on the telephones and online.

Two paintings by Victorian feline artist Louis Wain sold for £16,000. The works had been discovered by a Pembrokeshire couple in a skip while out walking their dog.

It was Kyffin Williams, however, who claimed the top lot of the day. His landscape Standing Stones at Penrhos Feilw had originally been offered in our Welsh Sale and, just a month later, sold at the upper end of its original estimate, proving that exceptional pictures will always find their audience.

It was a busy day at our Cardiff saleroom, with the Beyond Europe sale, featuring Asian, world and ethnographic art, taking place in the afternoon after our British & European sale in the morning.

The top lot of the day was an ink and watercolour depicting a scene from The Strange Tales of Liaozhai, a collection of Classical Chinese stories by Qing dynasty writer Pu Songling. According to some critics, the stories served as an implicit critique of societal problems, and many have since been adapted for film and television.

There were a few surprises at our final auction of the month, with a Pre-Raphaelite School oil painting exceeding expectations to achieve a hammer price of £1,000 against an estimate of £100–150. The first lot of the day, an antique Welsh stick chair, also performed well, selling for £800. As ever, there was plenty of variety on offer, including furniture, silver, jewellery, musical instruments, J.R.R. Tolkien collectables, and more.

See our full calendar of auctions here. To keep up to date with future sales, you can subscribe to email alerts at the bottom of the page.

Entries NOW Invited to The Welsh Sale (Cardiff) to be held on July 25th.

• Entries required 'in saleroom' by June 23rd
• UK collection service available (free for notable entries)
• Free no-obligation assessments brj@rjauctions.co.uk / 077602 61023