Auction Reports

Adding a classical touch to a highly successful five-day sale at West Sussex auction house Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium) was a 1st century AD Greco-Roman marble lower torso of Aphrodite.

Extinct for 65 million years, dinosaurs continue to rule the world of children visiting the National History Museum, of multi-million dollar movie makers – and of bidders at the Evolution Sales at Summers Place Auctions (25% buyer’s premium).

Exuding the exuberant confidence of pre-1914 Britain, this 21in (52cm) long silver table centrepiece, below, was a natural target for the London trade at the Anthemion (17.5% buyer’s premium) November 20 sale in Cardiff.

The height of fashion nearly three centuries ago, this 18th century doll’s dress caught the eye at C&T’s (20% buyer’s premium) specialist sale in Tunbridge Wells.

Two November sales underlined the current strength of the field of British studio pottery.

Specialist Philip Smith, head of the 20th Century & Modern British Art departments at the London outlet of Edinburgh auction house Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium), believes studio ceramics should be classed as art.

Less often seen than Suffragette propaganda and considerably less PC these days, a brass and enamel fob badge for the National League for Opposing Woman had its international admirers at Ipswich auction house Lockdales (19.5% buyer’s premium).

Differing echoes of the First World War attracted bidders at Dominic Winter’s (20% buyer’s premium) Cirencester auction in the run-up to Remembrance Sunday.

The huge and ongoing task of cataloguing thousands of cigarette cards and other ephemera from a deceased collector’s home – he had walls pasted with beer mats instead of wallpaper – paid off for Bristol auctioneer Gavin Aplin.

An impressive piece of neoclassical silver gilt with an impressive provenance, this George III trophy was consigned to Gerrards (18% buyer’s premium) by a vendor whose great-grandmother had apparently been given it ‘by royalty’.

An impressive 23in (58cm) tall Sèvres vase offered by Shropshire auction house Trevanion & Dean (20% buyer’s premium) had a lot going for it historically but a considerable amount of condition problems.

Two music-makers caught the eye, or rather ear, at Adam Partridge’s (20% buyer’s premium) Macclesfield sale.

Top-seller at the latest sale of Islamic and Indian Art and antiquities held at Roseberys (25% buyer’s premium) in West Norwood was a 19th century Sikh enamelled and diamond-set gold medal.

Even during his lifetime Edward William Godwin complained that ebonised tables to his textbook ‘Anglo-Japanese’ design c.1867-68 were being copied by a number of different manufacturers.

The talented Sèvres factory decorator Desire Leroy (1840-1908) came to the United Kingdom in 1878 to take up an appointment at Minton in Staffordshire. However, he is perhaps best known for his work at the Royal Crown Derby where he worked from 1890, aged 50, until his death in 1908.

Most regionally made Georgian oak longcase clocks can now be bought for under £500 but this example is by a highly regarded and collectable maker: John Wolley or Woolley (c.1738-95) of Codnor, Derbyshire.

Although the catalogue noted the rarity of a Queen Anne silver tazza and tankard having been together for more than 300 years, they were offered separately at Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne.

Hornby Dublo collectors fought spirited battles for clockwork rarities at Duggleby Stephenson’s (18.75% buyer’s premium) York sale.

Bringing the highest price yet at one of Richard Edmonds’ (20% buyer’s premium) specialist Petroliana and Automobilia sales in Chippenham was a rare petrol pump globe.

In the resilient Beswick market, collectors paid high prices for some rarities – even modern prototypes – at autumn sales.