Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood

This North West Mounted Police hat badge caught the attention when Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (25% buyer’s premium) of Exeter sold the remaining personal effects of Canadian soldier and policeman Major General Sir Samuel Benfield Steele KCMG CB MVO (1848-1919) on March 19.

If you wanted to sum up the current state of the watercolours and works on paper sector in a single sentence, you might say something like ‘flatter than ever for general works but exceptional lots routinely generating strong interest’.

An impressive result emerged at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood on December 5 when a travel album titled The Ramblings and Adventures of an Indian Officer was knocked down at £135,000.

The writing was on the wall for the Waverley not long after it entered the market in 1895.

This carved marble portrait head of a youth shown here is Roman and comes from a tightly dated period of the 2nd century.

Dent and Co is one of the bestknown names in English horology with a long history of precision clock and watch making.

Interest in wireless telegraphy, that was piqued when Guglielmo Marconi successfully sent a message from Poldhu, Cornwall to St John’s, Newfoundland in 1910, prompted many amateurs to build and develop their own sets based on the ‘Coherer’ principle for sending and receiving Morse code.

Widely varying plans outlining a faraway harbour and a slice of rural Yorkshire bring saleroom surprises

The market for ‘after’ or ‘attributed to’ works is often rather unpredictable. While some works will inevitably fall flat at auction, others sometimes take off.

If this painting of a farmhouse in Brittany seems reminiscent of a piece of French Impressionism, that’s probably no coincidence.

A December 6 auction in Exeter was dominated by a lot estimated at just £40-60 but sold instead at £24,000.

Found in a cigar box during an attic clearance and taken to Exeter auction house Bearnes, Hampton & Littlewood (25% buyer’s premium), seven framed daguerreotypes in poor condition provided one of the better sleepers of the year on November 22-23.

A clutch of good-quality traditional landscapes exceeded hopes at Exeter saleroom Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (25% buyer’s premium).

A selection of Doulton HN series rarities sold at three regional salerooms this month.

Among the lots catching bidders’ eyes in the last few months were a number of intriguing portraits that came up at sales in south-west England.

The Summer Sale at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood in Exeter on July 13-15 includes this mid-Victorian colour change sapphire and rose-cut diamond pendant.

Translating simply as ‘a box with drawers’ but so much more exotic than that, a rare Spanish Renaissance caja con cajones was the outstanding lot at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood’s (25% buyer’s premium) quarterly fine art sale in Exeter.

RAF Wing Commander Terence Helfer’s Distinguished Flying Cross citation stated: “He has undertaken many hazardous missions…”