South-east England

The owner of an 18th century double-manual harpsichord, the only one of its type known to exist, has been temporarily prevented from exporting it in the hope a UK buyer can be found.

Serendipity had it that two important, but scantily catalogued, lots of European glass emerged for sale in the south of England in early January.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Bi-monthly Sunbury event has carved out a strong niche – a picture special.

A trademark nocturnal scene by Victorian painter John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-93) got away on low estimate for £80,000 at John Nicholson’s (25% buyer’s premium) of Haslemere in Surrey.

One of the more unusual corkscrews to come onto what is a fiercely competitive collectors’ market recently was a brass, steel and wooden contraption of the type one may have seen clamped to the bar of fin-de-siècle brasseries.

Jane Alexander of Dovehouse Fine Antiques Fairs reports that 2018 was another busy year for her fairs at the Dorking Halls, particularly as she has managed to organise a second room at this Surrey venue.

This unfinished oil sketch of a tree was kept by pre-Raphaelite painter John William Waterhouse (1849-1917) until his death and sold in his last major studio sale, held in 1926 at Christie’s.

Posters covering band or artist appearances during the embryonic days of their development are proving very popular at auction – a trend underlined by a group of 1966 Pink Floyd designs.

An antiques dealer for nearly 40 years and the long-time owner of Below Stairs in Hungerford, Stewart Hofgartner, pictured below, is a colourful character.

A table designed by a teenaged Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-52) for Windsor Castle sold for £23,500 (plus 21% buyer’s premium) at Gorringe’s of Lewes on December 4.