West Sussex

While London gun-makers featured heavily – and lucratively – at Gavin Gardiner’s (25% buyer’s premium) auction of Modern & Vintage Sporting Guns on December 14, provincial makers also got a look in.

Numerous works by Henry Williamson including fascinating inscriptions and annotations were offered in Chichester saleroom

Published by John Newbery c.1770, 'A Little Pretty Pocket Book…' and its companion 'Little Song Book' is a very small work indeed at little more than 3in (7.5cm) tall, but the latter includes some 54 woodcut illustrations and accompanying verses related to children’s games and pastimes.

Having featured prominently on television in a specially made part of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, Paddington Bear hardly needs any more publicity.

The record-setting piece of Beswick pottery at a recent sale at Potteries Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) – a rare variant of a shire horse model that fetched £11,300 (ATG No 2569) – was not the only lot bringing notable demand.

A group of 24 works from the collection of Wilfred and Jeannette Cass provided a boost to Bellmans’ (22% buyer’s premium) latest Modern British and 20th Century Art auction.

Estimated at £800-1200, this Regency giltwood and ebonised convex wall mirror sold at £12,500 at Toovey’s (24.5% buyer’s premium) on November 3.

Among the works attracting interest at a recent Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium) sale were two pictures formerly in the collection at Shakenhurst Hall.

The 1882 Royal Worcester porcelain ‘Patience’ teapot has become a satirical emblem of the Aesthetic movement.

Translation was first time a major poem of antiquity appeared in an English language form.

Bid to £3400, a 1703 first edition of Martin Martin’s Description of the Western Islands of Scotland in a later full calf binding proved the most expensive item in the 250-lot book and ephemera section that opened an October 5-7 auction at Stride & Son (18% buyer’s premium).

While many US museums display portraits of famous Patriots from the War of Independence, especially the likes of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Nathanael Greene, pictures of Loyalists are less common in their collections.

Inspired by his trips to Richmond Park in south-west London, French-born sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891-1915) fashioned a number of deer sculptures.

The sales at Stride & Son (21.6% buyer’s premium inc VAT) in Chichester on September 1-2 included a trio of avidly contested items, each a rarity in three highly specialised collecting areas.

With the added lustre of having been worn by a Fifties aristocratic supermodel, two jewellery items entered by her grandchildren were the stars at Bellmans’ (22% buyer’s premium) sale of items from a Shropshire manor.

Bellmans is holding a special book and manuscript auction as part of the October sales series, on October 11, with the majority of books coming from one collection.

Copy of his first book was a later gift from Sir John Heygate to Tarka the Otter author

A volume containing first editions of two important geological works by Dr Gideon Mantell sold for £2000 in West Sussex.

Bellmans is selling the collection of Anthony and Marietta Coleridge on September 7-8.

The team behind dealer marketplace 2Covet has bought The Petworth Park Antiques & Fine Art Fair.