South-west England

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.

CLIVE Stewart-Lockhart, deputy chairman of Dreweatts, is to become managing director of Woolley and Wallis, the Salisbury-based salerooms.

AT Waterloo, Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852) is supposed to have directed the battle from a position near the crossroads of the Brussels and Ohain roads.

A 19th century brass lectern stolen from a church in Wiltshire has emerged at an antiques fair in Romania.

Moorcroft Boy recorded one of the great comebacks in racing history when he recovered from a horrific injury at Aintree in 1995 to win the Scottish National the following year.

RAMRAIDERS have smashed their way into the Court Barn Museum, home to the Guild of Handicrafts collection, and stolen unique pieces of silver.