Opening this season’s Sotheby’s Hong Kong Chinese Works of Art Autumn Sale Series 2018 on 3 October is The Yamanaka Reticulated Vase which has remained dormant in a Private Japanese Collection for almost a century since its acquisition in 1924 following its exhibition with Yamanaka in New York in 1905. Carved and exquisitely painted with four pairs of fish below Rococo-inspired motifs on a yellow sgraffiato ground, the exceptional famille-rose reticulated vase is skillfully modelled with an inner blue-and-white vase. Ranking among the most complex porcelains ever commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor, it is the pair to the famous Bainbridge Vase hammered at £43 million in 2010. Nicolas Chow, Chairman, Sotheby’s Asia, International Head and Chairman, Chinese Works of Art, comments, “It is a great privilege for us to offer this Qing reticulated vase from the Imperial collection of the Qianlong Emperor this season. N

A set of Roman-era tombs dating back some 2,000 years have been discovered near the Palestinian city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank during road works, an official said Thursday. The cemetery dating to the first century AD, when the region was under Roman rule, was found in the village of Idna in the southern West Bank around two weeks ago. It was discovered during road work in mountainous terrain in the area, said Taleb Jubran, director of the department of tourism and antiquities in Hebron. Bones, pottery and some 32 tombs set into stone were found. It was clear to archaeologists that artifacts had been stolen from the site before it was officially discovered, said Jubran. “This discovery is very important for us to study it and to preserve it,” Jubran said. The tombs were set out over a space of some 50 metres. Officials also hoped to turn the site into a tourist attraction, while further study of it would continue to turn up details of what was found and its importance, he sai

Numismatic auction powerhouse Stack’s Bowers Galleries has sold the rarest and most valuable U.S. nickel in existence tonight for $4,560,000 million at their official auction of the American Numismatic Association’s World’s Fair of Money at Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Convention Center. At this price it becomes one of the five most valuable coins sold at auction as well as the most valuable non-precious metal coin ever. The Eliasberg 1913 Liberty Head nickel, one of only five ever produced, is the finest-graded example of its kind and traces its provenance to the only complete collection of United States coins by date and mintmark. “This is truly a momentous sale and one for the history books,” said Brian Kendrella, president of Stack’s Bowers Galleries. “The new owner of the Eliasberg nickel now possesses one of the rarest, most valuable United States coins, and one of onl

An antiquities museum in Syria’s rebel-held province of Idlib said to house one of the world’s oldest dictionaries reopened on Monday after five years, an AFP correspondent said. Dozens of visitors trickled into the museum in Idlib city to see what an official said represented just a fraction of the building’s collection. Ayman al-Nabu, head of antiquities for the city controlled by an alliance of rebels and jihadists, said the museum had been damaged by air strikes and looting during Syria’s nearly seven-year conflict. After it was closed in 2013, “we carried out maintenance and rehabilitated the museum to give it new life,” he said. Organisers are planning “visits for a whole generation of students who have been unable to visit archeological sites due to the war,” he added.