East of England

The recent auction of 20th century design at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium) in Stansted Mountfitchet was underpinned by more than 60 consignments from the estate of MJ Long.

When buying back their heritage, Cardiff City FC and supporters may not be in the same financial league as Manchester United, but they were a welcome factor at Lockdales (19.5% buyer’s premium).

Modestly catalogued as English School, 1960s, a Modern British study of a head emerged as one of the top-selling pictures at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium) in Stansted Mountfitchet.

Publisher tried to link book to the poet to boost sales but a revised version was issued instead

A c.1900 half-length oil on canvas portrait of a girl with flowers caught the eye of bidders at Lacy Scott & Knight (24% inc VAT buyer’s premium) in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

Bible suggests confusion over ‘he’ or ‘she’ may not be purely a modern-day phenomenon.

Items from the homes of MJ Long (1939-2018) and Colin ‘Sandy’ St John Wilson (1922-2007), the husband and wife team that designed the British Library, come for sale at Sworders in Stansted Mountfitchet later this month.

December 10 marked a significant step in the history of specialist sporting and antique gun auction house Holts (25-20% buyer’s premium).

The English artist and poster designer Alfred Thomson (1894-1979) painted this eye-catching depiction of the famous penguin pool at London Zoo.

The sale at Cheffins (22.5% buyer’s premium) in Cambridge on December 12 included a cache of Victorian and earlier silver from the collection of Delaval Astley, 23rd Baron Hastings (b.1960).

Provincial by geography but far from provincial in outlook, auction houses from Essex to the Yorkshire Dales underlined the international nature of their trade at recent auctions. Cosmopolitanism covered both what was on offer and who was buying.

Several 19th and 20th century sporting paintings from named estates provided a healthy boost at two regional salerooms.

A story of extraordinary peacetime gallantry of a Cumbrian seaman turned coalminer was at the heart of a group of medals, photographs and press cuttings offered at Reeman Dansie (20% buyer’s premium) at Colchester on November 28.

An intaglio ring became the second of the ‘lost’ Marlborough jewels to surface at auction in 2019 when it sold for £36,000 (plus 22.5% premium) in Cambridge.

Although catalogued as Sèvres, a porcelain cup and saucer sold by Keys (20% buyer’s premium) of Aylsham for an unexpected £5500 (estimate £100-200) on November 27 was by the factory’s precursor at Vincennes. The saucer had the date letter A for c.1754 and the cup B for c.1755.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales including a Herbert Thomas Dicksee polar bear print.

Two mixed lots of Victorian dust-pressed tiles sold for multi-estimate sums at Mander (24% buyer’s premium inc VAT) in Sudbury on November 30. Key to their appeal were the inclusion of near sets of tiles made by Minton Hollins & Co to designs by Arts & Crafts luminaries.

A pair of engravings after Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1525-69) sold for more than six-times estimate at auction in Essex.

This rare piece of Cork silver of Irish Republican interest sold for £4000 (plus 23% premium) at Sworders latest sale.