South-east England

EMMA was the leading lady in a May 19 sale held by Dreweatt Neate of Newbury, an 1816 first of Jane Austen’s novel selling at £6000. Catalogued as bound in both contemporary half red morocco and later boards, it retained the half title to Vol. III only and showed a little spotting and staining. It also bore the booklabels of Gilbert Bethune of Balfour.

BOUND in half calf gilt and marbled boards, the three-vol., 1813 second edition of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice that sold for £4600 in a May 21 sale held by John Bellman of Billingshurst bore the pencil initials H.D. for Horace Darwin (Charles Darwin’s son) and his bookplates were to be found in a copy of the 1818, four-vol. first edition of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion in a similar but less well-preserved binding that sold at £2500.

MANY were as intrigued as myself at Caroline Penman’s Tythe Barn Experience which took place from May 21 to 23.

VETERAN fair organiser Reg Cooper is back – official. In early 2002 he sold his Cooper Antiques Fair circuit to Sue Ede, and for a while he remained at those fairs, helping out and exhibiting. But he has been gone for a while and recently rumours abounded that he was planning a comeback.

THERE is nothing like a modestly estimated, old English collection of Chinese art to lure London’s specialist trade to the provinces.

The highlight of the sale conducted by Mallams of Bocardo House, Oxford on May 26 was this rare mahogany Windsor chair (shown right) consigned for sale from a deceased estate in the Cherwell Valley of North Oxfordshire.

For 30 years, the props that have given authenticity to many of viewers’ beloved TV and movie costume dramas, have been supplied by West London specialists Period Props & Lighting.

MANY of the top lots among the 725 offered at Clarke Gammon Wellers' (15% buyer's premium) April 20 sale came from the owner of an elegant local flat – including a William IV mahogany longcase.

GIVEN the bob-a-long prices for run-of-the-mill furniture at auction, the fact that 917 offerings at Lawrences of Bletchingley's (12.5% buyer's premium) 2861-lot April 27-29 sale were furniture didn’t bode well for the three-day outing.

WITH London’s Master Drawings week looming in July, specialist dealers were predictably out in force to contest this long-lost François Boucher (1703-1770) drawing which re-emerged at the Oxford rooms of Mallams (15% buyer’s premium) on May 7.

KENT English furniture dealer Michael Sim holds his fifth Special Summer Exhibition of Scottish & English Barometers throughout the month of June at his showrooms in Royal Parade, Chislehurst.

Right: among the highlights of the three-day on-the-premises house sale conducted by Woolley & Wallis at Ashley Manor, near Stockbridge, Hampshire from May 18-20 was this 11 1/2in (29cm) high bronze cast of a winsome puppy by Dame Elizabeth Frink (1930-1993).

AT Gorringes’ (15% buyer's premium) April 27-29 sale, specialist Aaron Dean was satisfied with the reaction to some 200 lots of silver but, with the market for routine tea services and so on remaining fairly moribund, it is the smaller collectables which catch the eye.

THE way a Maltese connection can lift the price of any item, from watercolours of Valletta to old oak chests, was in evidence at the April 30 sale held at Strides (15% buyer’s premium) of Chichester when this wall clock, right, was offered.

SOME 100 lots of silver and plate at Amersham Auction Rooms' (15% buyer's premium) April 1 400-lot sale largely bore out the current perception of the market that wine-related items will sell in an otherwise moribund market.

THE Orient provided the most eye-catching highlights at Rupert Toovey's (15% buyer's premium) March 17-19 sale, in the form of a set of four Japanese Satsuma plates signed by Kinkozan and an 18th century Chinese bamboo carving.

Despite the important nature of many items being sold to militaria and weapons specialists at the Marlow rooms of Bosleys (15% buyer's premium) on March 10, there were, as usual, a number of more domestic objects included.

THE unexceptional contents of a Scottish country house may have furnished Mallams (15% buyer's premium) April 28 304-lot outing with three-quarters of its entries, but it was the decorative, ornamental works from a variety of other private sources which provided many of the highlights.

FOLLOWING the supremely successful launch of her West Country Antiques Fair at Powderham Castle, near Exeter, earlier this year, Sue Ede of Cooper Antiques Fairs might have been tempting fate with another launch so soon after. Certainly her first Oxford County Antiques Fair, at beautiful Eynsham Hall, near Woodstock from May 7 to 9, was not an event to remember.

AFTER a five-year gap, Essex organiser Robert Bailey returns to Seaford College for his 30th Petworth Antiques, Fine Art and Investment Fair. He had many successful years at the college near Petworth in West Sussex, then he took a break due to some difficulties over the venue. Now he is back in the college’s Robertson Centre.