Pick of the Week

Well known for pottery, Sally Tuffin (b.1938) is also renowned for pioneering 1960s fashion as part of the Foale and Tuffin firm.

Joseph Towne (1806-79) is best known for pioneering the creation of anatomical wax models, many of which are now displayed at a medical museum at Guy’s Hospital in London.

A single-lot auction conducted by the sealed bids process has set a record for a transfer printed pot lid.

Edmund Edgar worked as a house painter, engraver and lithographer in London.

A poignant description of life as an artist studying at the Royal Academy in the mid-19th century emerged at auction and more than doubled its estimate.

The practice of presenting gold and enamel swords and freedom boxes, already popular in England in the 18th century, became more widespread during the Napoleonic Wars.

An amazing penknife proved a cut above in a sale from the David Hayden-Wright collection of antique knives offered at west London saleroom Olympia Auctions.

Works by Reginald Pepper (fl.1970s-90s) are not very common at auction – and this is not just because he doesn’t exist.

A 14th or 15th century Persian mirror that emerged at auction in Lincolnshire took a five-figure sum.

While the achievement of Manchester City players in winning three titles in consecutive seasons – with a treble – is certainly admirable, spare a thought for Tom Wilson, a footballer of a much earlier era.

As timing goes, the sale date for an album of handwritten letters, photographs and ephemera related to Sophia Duleep Singh (1876-1948) could not have been much better.

Leading the sale at Dominic Winter on May 17 was a highly unusual Elizabethan manuscript treatise on cheese and cheese making.

It is traditional in Russia for important, respected or admired guests to be greeted with an offering of bread and salt.

In January this year three photos of a salt glaze stoneware jar appeared on the Facebook feed of the Oxfordshire Antique Bottle Collecting Club.

This rare rock and pop poster advertises a performance by ‘Bazooka Joe’ with ‘Support Band’ at the common room of St Martin’s Art School on November 6, 1975. Entrance was 50p.

A garnet intaglio ring was bid to 450-times estimate at an auction in Birmingham after speculation that it could be one of the ‘lost’ Marlborough gems.

Before the familiar image of a lady in tall black hat and shawl took hold, the stereotype of Welsh identity was Shon-Ap-Morgan or Poor Taff.

This military tunic was worn by the English soldier and friend of the Romantic poets Edward John Trelawny during the Greek War of Independence.

The series of relatively austere wares made by Moorcroft in the 1930s are, today at least, not the factory’s most commercial designs.