Suffolk

ANOTHER piece of wine-related silver was among the better sellers at Olivers (10% buyer's premium) April 1 sale in the form of an Edwardian monteith.

BILLED as a regular Victorian sale, the main attractions of Abbots Auction Rooms' (10% buyer's premium) March 29 sale were in a 129-lot specialist decorative arts section – in particular two pieces of René Lalique glass.

INTENSE competition between three bidders on the telephone and two in the room pushed the watercolours of Edward Bawden (1903-1989) into new financial territory when this signed and dated, 1956 composition, right, House at Ironbridge, fetched £10,500 at the Sudbury, Suffolk rooms of Olivers (12.5% buyer’s premium) on April 1.

THE final 130 or so offerings in Abbotts (10% buyer's premium) 675-lot Suffolk sale on March 10 showed that good examples of standard late Georgian and Victorian furniture can still find buyers if the price is right.

One of the more unusual lots offered by Felixstowe auctioneers Diamond Mills (10% buyer’s premium) on December 16-17 was this framed and glazed Sutton & Sons educational display, right, entitled Analyses of Natural Grasses by Dr J. Augustus Voelcker.

Private consignments of Chinese porcelain are increasingly difficult to source and competition is rife between provincial and London rooms. Prices regularly spiral for the best quality works whether they are offered in the provinces or in the capital.

WORKING under the name Palm Antiques Fairs, Norfolk-based Joy Fletcher launched her Palm Antiques Fair at Blackthorpe Barn, Rougham, near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk over the weekend of September 26 to 28 and tells me both she and her exhibitors were happy enough with business to warrant a re-run on March 26-28 next year.

FOR 40 years, the Suffolk family concern Tudorose Ltd has been involved, directly or indirectly, with the antiques world. The operation is very much in line with current trends, for the company creates high-quality reproduction antique furniture, designs contemporary furniture, restores furniture and completely renovates interiors, among other things.

FOR 35 years known simply as The Snape Antiques Fair, for its 36th annual staging, from July 17 to 20, East Anglia’s premier antiques event will be re-labelled the Snape Maltings Antiques and Fine Art Fair.

NORFOLK fair organiser Liz Allport-Lomax has been in business as Lomax Antiques Fairs for nigh on 12 years and in that time has made the East Anglian fairs scene her own, wisely concentrating all her efforts on the area she knows and not straying too far from her home turf.

Highlight of the June 24-2 Neal Sons & Fletcher was this Regency green marble-topped table. With brass scroll supports decorated with swan heads and a trefoil base veneered in burr walnut, and with ebony stringing and mouldings, the 2ft 2in (66cm) diameter, 4ft 4in (1.32m) high table had been ensconced in a local country house for many years.

Pictured on the front cover of the 530-lot catalogue offered by Suffolk auctioneers Abbotts (10 per cent buyer’s premium) on March 12 was a group of Moorcroft pottery assembled by a Southwold collector over the past 25 years.

The death of Walter Moorcroft last year and the strong prices at Sotheby’s recent dispersal of the Wade collection have reinforced the popularity of this market, especially for the earlier Macintyre wares. A small collection at Bonham’s sale in Bury St Edmunds yielded the following results.

Americans being a major force in the arcane world of tool collecting,Tony Murland and Mike Hancock feared the US recession would hit their July 27 specialist Tool Shop Auctions, 10% buyer’s premium) at Needham Market.

EVER-resilient Essex organiser Robert Bailey is back on the acquisitions trail, if in a modest way. He has just taken over fellow Essex organiser Patricia Cox’s twice-yearly Tattersalls fairs at Newmarket, Suffolk and will run the next fixture from September 13 to 15.

THIS 438-lot Suffolk auction at Abbotts may not have been as strong as their last sale in March but this was more to do with the quality of consignments this time round than a reflection of the market.

Mention rare animals to a Lowestoft resident and you are likely to be directed to Suffolk’s only wildlife park on the outskirts of town, where African lions and ring-tailed lemurs roam the saltmarshes.

THE names of two women artists, one very well known, the other undeservedly obscure, provided talking points at two provincial sales in March.

NOT the top seller at this 653-lot Suffolk sale at Abbotts on 19 December but interesting in that it sold at all, was a burr walnut Victorian davenport.

UK: MODESTLY billed as a sale of Victorian and Later Furniture and Household Effects, this smallish event in a Suffolk town probably best known for its many antiques shops n fact combined two of the strengths of provincial auctioneers – some decent fresh-to-market period furniture to attract wide trade interest and some material guaranteed to spark bids from local enthusiasts.