East of England

Despite the fact that smoking cigarettes has been ostracised, the rise in interest for vintage smoking paraphernalia has increased.

Fair organising runs in the family for Gary Sheridan and his daughter Emma.

A portrait of a young Stuart woman, below, attributed to the Hungarian painter Johannes Priwitzer (fl.1626-35), topped the picture section in a two-day sale at Cheffins (22.5% buyer’s premium) of Cambridge.

Before finally achieving success in 1945 with The Pursuit of Love and then with Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford had published three novels. Two of these made record sums in a recent Stansted sale.

Based just outside Norwich, Holly Graham is a music teacher, singer and a director of assorted local theatre groups including the city’s Threshold Theatre Company.

This linocut comes from one of just 30 copies of Rigby Graham’s 'The Casquets… the most dangerous Channel Islands' issued by the Brewhouse Press in 1972.

Two early examples of Indo- Portuguese furniture sold for five-figure sums at auction this month.

A standout portrait entry to Essex saleroom Sworders (23% buyer’s premium) was a 4ft 2in x 3ft 4in (1.26 x 1.01m) oil on canvas portrait attributed to Francis Cotes (1726-70).

More than 500 lots of pictures, sculpture, furniture, textiles, architectural features and artefacts spanning 2000 years from the collection of the late Robert Barley, will come to auction at TW Gaze later this month.

A book of specimen banknotes printed for locations across the world has set a house record for Tring Market Auctions (17.5% buyer’s premium) by selling for £205,000.

This pair of Qing vases caught the eye of Hertfordshire auctioneer Richard Kluk when valuing jewellery at a London home.

One year shy of its 20th anniversary is the 2000-plus stand Peterborough Festival of Antiques held twice a year at the East of England Showground.

In ATG No 2354, we previewed Christina and Paul Bishop’s new glass fair launching on Sunday, September 23, at Ickworth House, the Georgian Italianate ‘palace’ near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, now owned by the National Trust. Paul, who runs Specialist Glass Fairs with Christina, updates us on the show.

Racing round the banking at Brooklands in Surrey, Sir Tim Birkin is shown to dramatic effect in this oil painting by Dion Pears, below.

One of the harder titles in the New Naturalist series to find today is RJ Berry’s Natural History of Orkney.