Essex

Among the rarest of all Subbuteo games invented and manufactured by Peter Adolph in Tunbridge Wells are those without a sporting theme.

An eyewitness account of the trial of two elderly widows on charges of witchcraft proved one of the more successful lots in a truly Out of the Ordinary sale held in Essex on February 11.

Our weekly selection from salerooms.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Morris record takes the headlines but his pupil is also in demand at same sale.

The year after Cedric Morris painted his verdant Foxgloves in 1932, a severe drought cut through much of southern Britain. The parched soil and the hardship it brought were a source of artistic inspiration for those who painted the form and the character of the rural landscape.

London art dealer Philip Mould was the successful bidder for three works by Cedric Morris (1889-1982) sold in Essex last week. One set a new auction record for the artist plantsman.

Stansted Mountfitchet auction house Sworders is growing its sales programme and headcount with an increased focus on London.

Diaries, journals and letters kept by Lady Anne Cullum (1807-95) of Hardwick House, near Bury St Edmunds, sold for a total of around £8000 in a recent East Anglian auction.

The first tranche of a private collection of predominantly Far Eastern maps and charts sold for more than £500,000 at Reeman Dansie and included a house record.