East of England

More than 100 paintings owned by the Royal Society of Marine Artists are to be sold at auction in Norfolk.

Sworders is to sell the primary contents of North Mymms Park, Hertfordshire – including a collection of European tapestries that have been at the property for over a century.

Good times ahead were predicted by Guy Schooling, chairman of Sworders (23% buyer’s premium), after the January 9 Homes & Interiors sale at Stansted Mountfitchet which was topped by a WAS Benson brass mantel clock.

Beloved of TV antiques programmes and of bidders knowing the lots are absolutely fresh to market, there are few phrases to stir the blood at an auction as much as ‘from the attic’.

The so-called ‘Great Bardfield Artists’, named after the Essex village where a community of painters and designers lived from the 1930s onwards, has become fertile ground for local auction house Sworders (22% buyer’s premium).

More than 400 lots of railwayana, assembled from the 1950s onwards by a single collector, will be offered at Norfolk auction house TW Gaze on January 5.

This 17th century Indian painting attributed to one of the best artists of the Mughal court sold for £42,000 at Sworders’ December 5 Country House Sale.

An Old Master portrait of an elderly Stuart woman took £13,200 at Mander Auctioneers (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Suffolk on November 18.

Before Natalie Smith opened the Woodbridge Antiques Centre 10 years ago in the pretty Suffolk town, she told ATG that she was given a great piece of advice: never compromise on quality and presentation.

Russia-born Tanya Goddard is one of the 35 exhibitors at the upcoming two-year-old Art Fair East in Norwich, which runs until December 3 at St Andrews Hall.

The second of Suffolk House Antiques’ two annual exhibitions has yet to kick off officially – Christmas Selling Exhibition 2017 runs from December 2-23 and showcases an array of early furniture and works of art in the Yoxford gallery. Even so, with the catalogue up online, sales have already started.

In the little market town of Eye in Suffolk, English and Continental Antiques is preparing for its final exhibition of the year (starting November 18).

Earlier works in an October 18 sale held by Cheffins (22.5% buyer’s premium) included a scarce 1688 first of Randle Holme’s The Academy of Armory, or a Storehouse of Armory and Blazon, an heraldic work by the third member of a distinguished Chester family of heraldic painters and genealogists to bear that name. It made £1200.

In our continuing series looking through the keyhole of ‘bricks and mortar’ shops in 2017, ATG talks to Glenn Lawrence of Harp and Rose Antiques, which opened in May 2013 and specialises in early English porcelain and ceramics. It also stocks period furniture, clocks, glass, jewellery and more.

Overshadowed by the £130,000 Giacometti double-sided sketch (ATG No 2314), other pieces at Cheffins’ (23% buyer’s premium) sale at Cambridge on October 12 flourished under the banner of post-1880 design.