Auction Reports

The pictorial enamel signs advertising Webb’s Seeds of Stourbridge are some of the most popular on the market.

In the mid 1930s players making an England debut could receive a gold commemorative medal instead of their normal match fee.

Along with its Summer Fine Art sale, Tennants held a jewellery, watches and silver sale on July 17.

Front page pair of £68,000 candelabra headed a varied auction with plenty of highlights

Chinese trick or surprise cups were made to deceive a drinker and illustrate the classical paradigm that modesty brings gain and arrogance results in loss.

The central stone to this Art Deco seed pearl and diamond pendant is an elongated cushion-shaped pink sapphire, weighing about 25ct.

Distinctive steeple cups are scarce but an Elizabethan silver example came to market at a Somerset auction house

A silver sale at Woolley & Wallis (25/12% buyer’s premium) this summer included a selection of 24 snuff boxes from the Lion collection – as published in 'British Silver Boxes 1640-1840, The Lion Collection' (2015).

The dictum that class is permanent was borne out in a Newbury saleroom by prices for damaged pieces

From the same north London home as the Chinese Export mirror and an Irish dining table sold at Dreweatts was this pair of bronzes by Alfred Drury (1856-1944).

Depicting Bacchus and Ariadne riding a golden chariot drawn by leopards, a monumental Mortlake tapestry led a small but significant textiles section at Dreweatts.

Bidders deem Yongzheng Guan ware to be of the period as estimate is demolished

A private Scottish collection was the source of the-top selling lot at McTear’s (24% buyer’s premium) in Glasgow on July 2.

Very much to current collecting taste is the 6½in (16.5cm) ‘peach bloom’ saucer dish shown here, offered by Batemans (20% buyer’s premium) on July 3.

Set of tools was designed specifically to take apart rather than create fine textiles

Mallams’ (25% buyer’s premium) latest Asian art sale was topped at £27,000 (estimate £3000-5000) by a Qing jade double gourd form snuff bottle.

William Billingsley (1758-1828), a key figure in the history of both English and Welsh porcelain, left the Derby factory in 1795 yearning to create the finest, whitest and most translucent porcelain.

Aficionados of later Chinese porcelain who happened to stumble on a lot of ‘collector’s plates’ at Unique Auctions (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Lincoln would have been excited to spot two fine artist-signed Republic period pieces.

This small Transitional porcelain vase came for sale at Gardiner Houlgate (22% buyer’s premium) in Corsham, Bath, on July 1.

This 15in (37cm) Sèvres porcelain presentation tazza or ‘Coupe Cybele’ was made for the Paris Exposition 1878.