East Midlands

Dealers Neil Honor and Jonathon Pegg run Catesbys, an interiors shop, from their home in the village of Exton, Rutland.

A monogram and faint signature to a botanical study sold at Derbyshire saleroom Hansons (20% buyer’s premium) revealed it to be the work of celebrated Australian artist Sidney Nolan (1917-92).

Pitched at £15,000-25,000, a rare 16th century French work made its lower estimate at Mellors & Kirk (20% buyer’s premium).

Roger de Ville brings a rare Liverpool delftware puzzle jug, c.1750, to The Buxton Decorative Antiques & Art Fair priced at £2200. He is among the regular exhibitors at the event, where he has stood for around 20 years.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Underpinned by bids from the internet, silver from beyond the British Isles is these days a stronger feature of provincial sales.

Guide to the prostitutes and brothels of London tempts bidders at Staffordshire sale.

“I’ve sold Jesus Christ… could I interest you in St Patrick?” So asked Martyn Watson of Penrith, Cumbria, stalling out in the Epic Centre and keen to shift his statue of Ireland’s patron saint.

Condensing a two-day event into one and moving to a new weekday slot are no mean feats – just ask Arthur Swallow Fairs, which has just launched a new streamlined format. ATG went along to the first edition to view the results.

Arthur Swallow Fairs’ Antiques & Home show may not have the moniker ‘international’ attached but the event attracts a strong overseas group of buyers who comb the fair, clutching sheets of shipping firm stickers to identify purchases for collection.

Belinda and Tom Kilduff (pictured below) are Lincolnshire locals and Antiques & Home Show loyalists. They noted how “busy, condensed and lively” the one-day format was.

Captain Albert Ball (1896-1917) is remembered as one of Britain’s greatest heroes of the skies. At the time of his death over Arras in the First World War, aged just 19, he had shot down at least 44 German planes and was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

A collection of First World War memorabilia relating to British army Private John Trickett – including an 1889 copper penny apparently bent when a bullet hit his breast pocket – brought a multi-estimate sum at Hansons (20% buyer’s premium) of Etwall on March 22.

A hunger strike ‘Fed By Force’ medal awarded to Suffragette Selina Martin (1882-1972) has been snapped up at auction by an Australian museum.