Colchester

The V&A loses out in £23,000 bidding battle for Prince Albert’s drawings of the diamond and sapphire coronet he designed for Queen Victoria.

A New and Correct Plan of the Cities of London, Westminster and Borough of Southwark sold at Reeman Dansie (20% buyer’s premium) of Colchester was offered on behalf of an un-named charity.

While Georgian spectacles are relatively common at auction, 17th century examples are a rarer beast.

This bust of the first American president George Washington (1732-99) is titled to the base, and signed and dated 'R Trentanove Fecc in Roma, 1827'.

This Georgian grant of arms document on vellum was presented to the celebrated Scottish physician Gilbert Blane (1749-1834) after his creation as a baronet by The Prince Regent in 1812.

The first fine art sale of 2021 at Reeman Dansie (20% buyer’s premium) will be remembered for the spectacular £100,000 bid for a Mary Beale (1633-99) work.

Colchester auction house Reeman Dansie follows a policy of detailed cataloguing for Chinese art but modest estimates

A recent Reeman Dansie sale in Colchester included 80 pieces from the estate of the well-known dealer Jane Sumner, who died last September at the age of 82.

When the Bolshevik government took control of the Imperial Porcelain Factory following the October Revolution of 1917, large quantities of glazed but unpainted white hard-paste porcelain plates, cups and saucers remained at the site.

Leonard Squirrell (1893-1979) is most associated with East Anglia, producing a significant body of rural scenes of Suffolk and Norfolk as well as cityscapes of Norwich and Ipswich.

This 19th century gold diamond, pearl and blue enamel locket and necklace, sold by Reeman Dansie (20% buyer’s premium) in Colchester on August 11 for £2800, came with a little Hollywood stardust.

Four pictures in Colchester sale provide a good case study in the factors affecting John Constable attributions and buyer confidence

Pictured here is one of two 19th century or earlier Maori greenstone 'mere' offered at a recent sale held by Reeman Dansie (20% buyer’s premium) in 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.