South-west England

Providing a stern test of the resolve of cricket enthusiasts, a Victorian loving cup was the unexpected star of Michael J Bowman’s (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale at Chudleigh.

Having produced only 700-800 works in his short-lived career, Gilbert Marks (1861-1905) is not among the best-known silversmiths of his generation but was considered one of the foremost craftsmen of his day.

It was during a period of intense industrialisation that the 19th century pastoral tradition in British print making flourished.

The Old Master section of Dominic Winter’s sale on March 7 yielded multi-estimate sums for two works that were linked to major names in Renaissance and marine art.

A table game published by John Wallis called The Mirror of Truth was one of two notable juvenilia lots in the opening children’s and illustrated books section of a March 6 Devon sale.

A pair of rare George II rosewood candlestands c.1745-60 has been reunited by Fairfax House in York after one of them was spotted at a Woolley & Wallis auction at the start of the year.

A month before the emergence of three Compass factory figures in Lewes, the eighth and ninth recorded pieces by America’s earliest-known porcelain maker were offered for sale in Salisbury.

Jeff Day was born in Weston-super-Mare in 1952 and grew up in Somerset.

Ornithological books and artworks have played their part in the success of two recent sales and a selection of just a few of those lots begins with books from the Ladwell library.

The ceramics sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on April 30 includes two maiolica apothecary jars and covers from the celebrated Fortuna series – an ambitious suite of pharmacy jars and jugs made in the third quarter of the 16th century.

Rare examples of early English porcelain are still capable of remarkable sums.

A selection of five pieces of Clarice Cliff offered at different price levels at Woolley & Wallis on March 20 .

Patrick Macintosh deals in English country house antiques from the 17th-20th centuries with an emphasis on quirky furniture. He is based in Sherborne, Dorset, and exhibits at the Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair in Battersea with fellow dealer Richard Nadin.

Familiar striking shapes and bright colours retain a strong following despite a fall in demand from the 1980s-90s heyday.

Exhibitors at Bath Decorative Antiques Fair toasted 30 years as the event opened last week.

The Court Gallery has joined forces with the Museum of Somerset to stage an exhibition of the works of Doris Hatt (1890-1969), a local pioneer of British modernism.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.