Colchester

Although championed by Stanley Spencer and the poet and critic Herbert Read, Francis Plummer (1930-2019) is a name few will have heard of.

A Westerwald salt-glaze jug offered at Reeman Dansie's latest sale in Colchester was worked with stylised tulips and a medallion with the portraits of William of Orange and Queen Mary.

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.

Exuding the exuberant confidence of pre-1914 Britain, this 21in (52cm) long silver table centrepiece, below, was a natural target for the London trade at the Anthemion (17.5% buyer’s premium) November 20 sale in Cardiff.

This unassuming Grana military issue c.1945 shown below forms part of the so-called Dirty Dozen wristwatches made by 12 Swiss manufacturers for the British army.

Focusing on south-east Asia, a 90-lot map section in an Essex sale comprised the extraordinarily successful first portion of a collection of maps and charts assembled by Christopher Beresford-Jones.

“Such is the wealth of East Anglian artists I don’t think there is another region in the UK that can compete. The Cornish tradition comes close, but it goes back only 100 years – the East Anglian tradition goes back way longer.”

The bullish Modern British art market fuelled the performance of three market-fresh paintings by George Hammond Steel (1900-60) which appeared at an Essex auction.

One half of an extensive single-owner collection of novelty Victorian and Edwardian silver and glass animal objects went under the hammer at Reeman Dansie’s two-day sale in Colchester last week.

The most desirable of all sealed bottles are those that are both named and dated. It is the possibility for geneaological research that fires many collectors.

Part of the intake for a general sale, a terracotta sculpture by a protégé of Antonio Canova sold for £21,000 (plus premium) at Reeman Dansie in Colchester.

Topographical watercolours may not be the hottest area of the art market, but they can still pack a punch in the saleroom.

A small collection of 18th century European porcelain offered by Reeman Dansie in Colchester included this Meissen teapot and cover c.1725.

Half a dozen works by the obscure British artist Valentine Dobrée (1891-1974) sold for multi-estimate sums at Reeman Dansie (20% buyer’s premium) in Colchester on September 26-27.

Views created by vessel’s captain envisaged a kinder end to its career than a tragic collision...

Tentatively catalogued as ‘18th-19th century German, possibly Meissen’, a porcelain figure of the Quack Doctor from the Cryes of London series was the surprise tonic at Reeman Dansie’s (20% buyer’s premium) August 1 Colchester sale.

A major work by French academy painter Edouard Joseph Dantan (1846-97), unseen for over a century, has emerged at an auction in Colchester.