South-east England

The sale at garden statuary specialist Summers Place Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) in Billingshurst on March 24 (the day after lockdown) was among the first conducted under new government restrictions on social distancing.

A recent sale conducted by Michael Bowman (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Newton Abbot, Devon was a homespun affair – held in the auctioneer’s house, with his wife handling phone and commission bids and two assistants operating the bidding platforms remotely by way of a loudspeaker mobile phone link.

Appearing in 1937, a couple of years after the locomotive itself was launched, the LMS Princess Elizabeth was the biggest and best locomotive that Hornby ever made.

Contents of Palladian home in County Durham provide showpiece auction in Newbury

Bid to £4100 and £3000 in a sale held by Lawrences (20% buyer’s premium) of Bletchingley were two albums, or ledgers, relating to the business of violin maker WE Hill & Sons – both with a direct family provenance.

Sir William Whitfield and Andrew Lockwood shared a love of English blue and white transfer printed pottery and associated pearlwares and creamwares.

Since its launch in 1953 there have been well over a dozen distinct references of the Rolex Submariner, with all sorts of minutiae adding up to several hundred different variants.

Puritan Cotton Mather’s defence of executions is latest work on the subject to surface.

A group of pictures from the collection of the late art dealer Duncan Campbell, who died in 2011, were among the lots drawing interest at Dreweatts.

A cross-section of Asian art – Qing porcelain, Meiji Satsuma and Euro-Asiatic ivories – provided the prizes at Gorringe’s (21% buyer’s premium) spring sale held in Lewes.

A rare creamware transfer printed and painted beaker offered for sale by Mellors & Kirk (20% buyer’s premium) in Nottingham told a dark tale.

Artist battles back to regain favour with auctioneers, private buyers and dealers

This deluxe Victorian travel accessory is a ‘campaign wardrobe’ made by Robinson & Sons of Ilkley, Yorkshire.

An early coastal scene of Australia sold for more than five times its top estimate to an online buyer from New South Wales at Ewbank’s anniversary sale.

Impressionistic pastoral landscapes, often featuring cattle, are the signature works of John Alfred Arnesby Brown (1866-1955).

The Limerick-born painter Norman Garstin (1847-1926) was an engineer, architect, and a diamond prospector before he settled on art as a career.

With Storm Ciara getting under way (in pre-coronavirus days…) it was not, perhaps, the ideal time to launch the new weekend sales at Canterbury Auction Galleries (20% buyer’s premium).

Three Victorian bangles were among the most popular lots of Dreweatts’ (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of Fine Jewellery, Silver, Watches and Objects of Vertu.