West Sussex

Turbulent as politics are today, they have yet to reach the rumbustious heights of a notorious 1826 by-election in Northumberland, memories of which were revisited at Newcastle auction house Anderson & Garland (20% buyer’s premium).

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Offered with an a/f catalogue caveat, this early 20th century marine chronometer, below, quadrupled expectations at Chichester saleroom Henry Adams (20% buyer’s premium).

Variety was certainly in evidence in a West Sussex sale, where the teenage journal of a young stained-glass maker, two broadside ballads and an illustrated dummy for 'Down with Skool!' all brought much higher than predicted bids.

Bellmans in Wisborough Green, West Sussex is to offer two watercolours by Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) as part of a Fine Paintings sale on October 15. Both come from a local private collection.

An Abstract work by the 20th century Filipino artist Oscar Zalameda (1930-2010) emerged as the star lot in an interiors auction in West Sussex.

The words ‘country’ and ‘brocante’ have an allure of their own as Lucy Haywood discovered when she founded the Country Brocante store in the village of Midhurst, West Sussex.

A lot comprising 31 posters plugging top groups and festivals from 1969-72 was the major hit at Bellmans’ (22% buyer’s premium) Photographs, Posters and Prints sale.

Italian sculptors were the hottest property as garden statuary flourished at summer sales in the Home Counties.

In market terms, ecclesiastical gates are not the subject of mass appeal but examples by major 19th century designers certainly had their devotees at two June sales.

In the 1950s French designer Raymond Cohen and his firm Cohray were producing a range of ultra-modern furniture that – although made for the machine age – were all put together by hand.

Britain still has many ‘antiques’ towns and streets – those picturesque corners of the island populated by shops, galleries and centres that together act as a magnet for antiques tourists. Two of the largest communities of dealers close to London are Petworth and Hungerford, while a busy schedule of regular fairs and markets takes place to the south-west of London.

Golden Age collaboration between two London clockmakers leads a look at the market including hammer highlights, auction previews and dealer news.

Eardley Norton, who is listed at 49 St John’s Street, Clerkenwell between 1762- 94, enjoyed a reputation as a skilled mechanic and the maker of complex timepieces, sometimes with musical and astronomical movements.

The series of Victorian carriage clocks by James McCabe – the son of a Belfast clockmaker of the same name who came to London in the 1770s and worked at the Royal Exchange from 1804 – are typically beautifully made with exemplary twin fusee striking movements.

Early printed books, among them a Bible of 1476, were a notable feature of a recent West Sussex sale.

This pastel portrait of a Singaporean merchant by Percy Carpenter (1820-95) is believed to have broken a 30-year auction record for the artist.