Salisbury

The Woolley & Wallis sale on October 6 included 36 lots by the Birmingham Arts & Crafts jeweller George Edward Hunt that had come by descent from his family. They had featured in an exhibition held at Bonhams in 2006.

The Tavistock Pannier Market may well see an influx of sleeper-hunters following the canny purchase in June of a piece described as ‘a Cornish tile’.

A Colored Troops Medal or Butler Medal was offered for sale at the Medals & Coins, Arms & Armour Militaria at Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury.

Coadestone urns to this design were a personal favourite of company founder Eleanor Coade herself.

A dozen lots of Greek, Roman and Egyptian artefacts once owned by Ferdinand Mainzer (1871-1943), a German-Jewish gynaecologist turned historical author, will open Woolley & Wallis’ tribal art and antiquities auction in Salisbury on September 22.

Once the second city in the kingdom, Norwich had its own silver assay office during three periods between 1565 and 1702.

A number of single-owner collections feature in Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury’s September 22 Tribal Art and Antiquities auction. These include the Michael G Johnson collection which makes up over 100 lots in the North American section.

A group of works of art from a country home once owned by members of the Rothschild family boosted the latest Woolley & Wallis auction.

Circumstances are quickly changing the way items are bought and sold at auction – but the first principles of quality, keen pricing and provenance still apply.

It was during the so-called Transitional period, the era of protracted civil war that marked the transition from Ming to Qing, that the centuries-old system of court-sponsored porcelain manufacture at Jingdezhen collapsed.

The market for traditional British and Continental ceramics did not lie idle for three months. As ATG reports, a renewed enthusiasm greeted the first major UK sale since lockdown

This rare 2in (5cm) English delftware ointment pot, c.1775, carries the inscription in manganese 'The Queen’s Dentifrice'.

Clive Stewart-Lockhart recalls memorable sales, including one ‘barn find’ with a difference, across his 45-plus years as an auctioneer

Responsible for the flowers at the Queen’s coronation, the society florist Constance Spry (1886-1960) is also credited with the ‘democratisation’ of flower arranging.

The recent sale of Clarice Cliff, Art Deco & Design at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury included 27 works by the studio potter William Staite Murray (1881-1962).

Houstoun-Boswall consignment includes Robert Adam’s proposal for Scottish country house

This pair of 19th century continental silver-gilt figure groups is among the objects from a Rothschild collection to be sold by Woolley & Wallis later this year.

A spectacular competition came at Woolley & Wallis’ latest picture sale as 12 bidders pursued a pair of Italian Old Masters which the auction house had spotted tucked away in a dark corner of the vendor’s top landing.

Judith Howard (1945-2019), collector, part-time dealer, museum curator, author, TV expert and lecturer, was a self-confessed ‘maximalist’. Every shelf and wall space in her Wiltshire end-of-terrace was there to be filled. Dusting was a chore reserved for just one day a year.