Hampshire

While many a hopeful vendor has to be told gently that great-great-grandpa’s pocket watch is worth little more than the melt price of the metal, a complication or major name – such as the signature Ch. Frodsham, London to the movement of this example, below – makes all the difference.

Cautiously catalogued as mid-19th century and suffering some damage, a large suzani attracted international interest at the Andrew Smith & Son (19% buyer’s premium) Winchester sale.

As with the overall market, Dutch furniture is much less popular than it once was and the 18th century walnut, floral marquetry and ivory-inlaid bombé bureau cabinet, below, had a couple of condition problems for bidders at Andrew Smith (19% buyer’s premium).

Two examples of the 19th century European craftsmen’s love of mother of pearl shone at Hannam’s (20% buyer’s premium) sale at Selborne on November 15.

A gift from the founder of the Tata global business empire to the architect who designed his Bombay headquarters, this late 19th century Patek Philippe gold hunter pocket watch was an eyecatcher at Andrew Smith (19% buyer’s premium) at Itchen Stoke on September 12.

The Winchester saleroom Andrew Smith & Son (15% buyer’s premium) unearthed eight works by two of Singapore’s most celebrated 20th century artists for sale on September 13.

The slow, but observable, return of competition for fine Japanese works of art was evident at Hannam’s (20% buyer’s premium) of Selborne on August 23 in the form of this large Meiji ivory scholar’s table screen, below.

The next Penman Fair takes place in Hampshire at Petersfield’s Festival Hall. Now in its 44th year, the upcoming edition of the Petersfield Antiques Fair features a focus on 20th century design, new dates and several fresh faces.

Like many who deal in antiques, the late dealer Andrew Cottrell zeroed in on his chosen niche with an all-consuming passion, accumulating vast knowledge (and stock) in the process.

A quintessential English village is how Buriton, near Petersfield in east Hampshire might be described. It nestles at the foot of the South Downs and boasts two pubs, a church, a large village pond with ducks and a village hall.

A Charles-Francois Daubigny (1817-78) painting that had been in the same private collection since 1963 topped Nesbits’ (19% buyer’s premium) sale in Portsmouth on May 17.

Such are the positive reports coming in from the provinces that one begins to fear what the finger-crossing superstitious call the curse of the commentator and the more rational know as the reversion to the mean.

An oil of HMS Ophir moored off Halifax in Canada sold for a multi-estimate sum at George Kidner’s (19% buyer’s premium) sale in Lymington on March 2.