Unique doll expected to fetch pounds 150,000

A DOLL that is one of a kind, because the mould was broken after it was made in 1909, is expected to set a world record price at Sotheby's on 8 February, writes Dalya Alberge.

The realistic bisque character doll, in a white cotton dress, bloomers and a straw bonnet, was made by the German firm Kammer and Reinhardt. Its uniqueness is due to it being made from an experimental mould that was never put into production.

The doll's condition, despite its age, is pristine, and as a result it is expected to fetch at least pounds 150,000.

The record for a 20th-century bisque doll is pounds 90,200, for another Kammer and Reinhardt sold at Sotheby's in 1989.

Another politician caught with his trousers down is making a show of himself. Unashamed by the hundreds of passers-by, he is standing with his trousers crumpled at his ankles at the Business Design Centre in north London.

This politician, however, is made not of flesh and blood but painted wood. He is Kevin Harrison's Party Politics, a grotesque caricature of a politician, being displayed by Nicholas Treadwell, a Bradford dealer and one of 70 exhibitors at Art 94, the contemporary art fair.

Mr Treadwell was relishing the topicality of the sculpture, though the sculptor has been working on it for six months. The figure, whose blue suit and rosette suggest a Tory MP, is for sale at pounds 3,300.

Dealers exuded a buoyant optimism. The consensus was that the general standard of the fair's art had improved on previous years, enhanced by the debut of several leading galleries.

(Photograph omitted)