East of England

An RAF logbook added value to a Second World War casualty group sold at Ipswich saleroom Lockdales (19.5% buyer’s premium) on July 15-16.

Cavendish Morton became prominent as a landscape artist after the Second World War, focusing on pastoral and maritime themes, particularly in East Anglia, where he moved with his family in 1946.

Personal and unique insights into warfare score highly at auction. So it proved at Cambridge firm Cheffins (22.5% buyer’s premium) in The Connoisseurs Sale on July 6, when a journal revealing the private thoughts of a Second World War fighter ace credited with more enemy ‘kills’ than any other British pilot doubled the top estimate to sell for £16,000.

Cheffins of Cambridge is offering two drawings by Alberto Giacometti (1901-66) at auction on October 12.

A pair of white glazed figures of musicians made by the Lowestoft factory c.1770 sold for £4000 at the July 18 sale at Keys (plus 20% buyer’s premium) of Aylsham.

Dreamy landscapes, fairies and classical female nudes fill many of today’s best-known canvases by the Victorian artist Edward Robert Hughes (1851-1914). But it was his skills as a portraitist that impressed critics most while he lived.

A scarce collection of watercolours by Biggles creator WE Johns (1893-1968) sold beyond expectations in Sworders’ (22% buyer’s premium) June 27 sale in Stansted Mountfitchet.

The pretty Suffolk coastal town of Southwold is well known for its delightful pier, Adnam’s brewery, multi-coloured beach huts and a Grade II-listed lighthouse in the middle of the town.

Gary Halford of Guildhall Antique Fairs is anticipating upwards of 150 stallholders at his annual antiques and vintage event at the Rutland County Showground, Oakham.

Along with its sister group in the US, members of Antiques Young Guns – “brilliant old things from bright young things” – now span at least three continents. AYG’s core message of support for up-and-coming professionals in the trade has never been stronger.

Highly collectable in itself, this 1920s car showroom lightbox advertising sign, right, had extra appeal to one bidder at automobilia specialists Richard Edmonds’ (20% buyer’s premium) sale at Chippenham on June 16.

Following a near sell-out auction of Lowestoft in March at Keys of Aylsham, another tranche is poised to go under the saleroom’s hammer.

A highlight of Sworders’ Country House sale in Stansted Mountfitchet on June 27 was a rare tinplate London omnibus.

Agatha Christie’s books were much in evidence at a Keys (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale of June 7-8, among them a 1921 first of The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

In our continuing series looking through the keyhole of ‘bricks and mortar’ shops in 2017, ATG talks to Paula Rippingale Mills, who runs Rippingales Antiques and Collectables in Suffolk.