Luxurious French style provincial lounge and dining room furniture will be among E.J. Ainger’s auction attractions from 9.30am Tuesday April 29 at 433 Bridge Road, Richmond.

The auction contains antique French, English and Australian furniture from throughout Melbourne including homes in Eden Park and Toorak.

Auction goers should also be keen on the gilded mirrors, genuine Persian and Turkish rugs, paintings and coloured prints – along with a good range of porcelain, silver, crystal and coloured glassware.

A silver medal presented in 1806 by the third Governor of New South Wales, Philip Gidley King, to Te Pahi, the first influential Maori leader to visit the fledgling colony, has recently been rediscovered after being lost for about 200 years.

It is one of Australia’s and new Zealand’s earliest and most significant colonial artefacts and will be a highlight of Sotheby’s Australia forthcoming Fine Asia, Australian & European Arts & Design auction from 6pm on Tuesday April 15 at the Intercontinental Sydney, 117 Macquarie Street, Sydney.

It is not often auction goers have the opportunity to see the workings of a milliner up close.

However, from 10am Saturday April 13 auctioneer Steve Graham will auction hat blocks and other hat making equipment and supplies belonging to well-known Mornington Peninsula milliner Jackie Newman, who is retiring from business after more than 30 years supplying hats for such major events as Caulfield and Flemington’s Fashions on the Field.

The collection of porcelain, silver and other fine objects belonging to nature lover and antique dealer the late Laszlo Erdos will be auctioned from 4pm Thursday April 10 by Leonard Joel at 333 Malvern Road, South Yarra.

Born in Hungary, as a young man Laszlo built a reputation as a man of birds with the Ornithological Institute of Hungary and in 1947 discovered a new species – the first in his country for 60 years.