East of England

Art glass dealers look forward to the Festival of Antiques.

Spotlight on businesses in the bustling antiques havens of Suffolk and Norfolk

A work thought to be one of Thomas Gainsborough’s (1727-88) earliest attempts at oil painting as well as his earliest-known self-portrait was one of a number of lots drawing considerable attention at Cheffins.

A bronze sculpture of an ostrich catalogued as from the workshop of Mannerist sculptor Giambologna drew an extraordinary competition in Cambridge.

Armorial head linked to the palaces of Henry VIII when he was married to Anne Boleyn.

Original photographs of a well-known Pre-Raphaelite beauty – the muse of William Holman Hunt and the mother of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell – sold for £2600 at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium).

The start of May is likely to be a busy period with outside fairs and markets opening up around England and Wales after a protracted lockdown hibernation. Here is a snapshot of a few of them.

MADAM – In September 1989, a valuable painting was left by my garage in central Cambridge.

Oil bought by the vendor directly from the artist Lucy Harwood features a still-life on the reverse

While the Museum of Power at Maldon in Essex does not yet have a firm date for reopening – to gaze at the original mighty steam-pumping machines – Steve Haddon of Haddon Events can still make use of the site.

Thirteen lots in the exotically named Dr Atomicas Journey into Cool auction at Bishop & Miller in Stowmarket on May 7 have been consigned from an individual who worked for 30 years in the film industry with some of the biggest names.

After three lockdowns but also a successful auction launch last August in between closures, Graham Hessell will be throwing open the doors once again to his Melford Antiques, Interiors & Lifestyle Centre on April 12.

Although catalogued simply as ‘a 19th century Art Nouveau glass’ and estimated at just £30-50, a letter that accompanied this rare wine glass gave a clue to its origins.

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'.

Sold online for a far higher than predicted £600 in Norfolk on February 11 was a calling card of William Marwood (1820-83), who for many years was an official hangman.

Stowmarket saleroom Bishop & Miller’s Military, Medals & Weapons auction on April 30 features items from a distinguished Victorian military family.

Medal group awarded to First World War nurse is coming up at Bishop & Miller auction.

Walter Sickert (1860-1942) first met Cicely Hey at a public lecture in 1923. The very next day Hey arrived at his studio in Fitzroy Street and continued to sit for Sickert over the next decade.