South-west England

The small Wiltshire firm Jubilee Auction Rooms – opened in the Queen’s Golden Jubilee year in 2002 and soon to move to larger premises in Pewsey – received inquiries from all over the world when it emerged they had unearthed a remarkable jewel-decorated flask by William Burges (1827-81) in a routine house clearance.

What may be a record price for the Poole artist Guy Sydenham was achieved at Cottees of Wareham when a stoneware model of a baby rhinoceros sold for £5000 at their latest sale.

Tributes have been paid to an antiques dealer who was drowned along with his three-year-old son in a boating accident.

Two more churches have been hit by thieves in the latest of a series of break-ins targeting medieval monuments and carvings.

This Chinese export sideboard dating from the late 19th century is estimated to fetch £800-1200 at East Bristol Auctions on May 26.

Entitled Seated Queen, this 19in (50cm) unmarked bronze sculpture by Ralph Brown (b.1928) will go under the hammer at The Cotswold Auction Company’s modern art and design sale in Cheltenham on May 29.

Chorley’s of Prinknash Abbey Park in Gloucestershire are offering this sketch by Damien Hirst at their sale on May 24.

A studio collection of works by Charles James Adams (1859-1931), best known for his animal pictures, is to be offered at The Cotswold Auctions’ specialist picture sale on May 18 in Cirencester.

An album containing over 200 photographs belonging to Flight Lieutenant Herbert Carmichael “Bird” Irwin (1894-1930), captain of the airship R101, is to be offered for sale at Netherhampton Salerooms in Salisbury, Wiltshire, on May 16.

Wind in the Willows characters Mole, Ratty and Toad are to go under the hammer at Michael Bowman of Newton Abbot in Devon on May 5.

Bids in the region of £1000-1500 are expected at Plymouth Auction Rooms on May 9 for this Eureka four-glass electric clock.

At their May 9-10 sale, Stroud Auction Rooms in Gloucestershire will include over 200 lots of weights and scales from a single collection.

IF pearls reached the peak of their popularity in antiquity, when the Roman general Vitellius is said to have financed an entire military campaign by selling just one of his mother’s pearl earrings, then the market in 2012 does not rest too far behind.

THE first corkscrew model designed by Robert Jones and Son of Cheapside, Birmingham in 1840, distinctive for a narrow barrel and a single spike, can usually be bought for around £1000.

ENTERED for sale by a descendent of the family for whom it was made, this carved wood and painted plaster model of an East End butcher’s shop sold for £22,000 at Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury.

A DEVON auctioneer has issued a warning after seeing off fraudsters who tried to con him out of thousands of pounds worth of jewellery and silver through phone bids.

FOUR people will appear in court next month in connection with a series of frauds involving foreign-based credit cards used to pay for high-value jewellery at a number of auction houses.

TV presenters and antiques champions Kirstie Allsopp and Mark Hill announced the winners of the inaugural Britain’s Best Antiques Shops Awards at the Bath Decorative & Antiques Fair on March 8.

The latest sale at Duke’s of Dorchester included this 16in (41cm) wide French chinoiserie ormolu and lacquered bronze mantel clock c.1750.

This signed William Scott (1913-89) lithograph of Mousehole harbour in Cornwall was spotted during a furniture valuation before being entered into Chorley’s latest sale in Prinknash Abbey Park, Gloucestershire.