South-west England

SETTING a house record at Cotswolds saleroom Tayler & Fletcher and helping them to their highest ever sale total, this small and previously unrecorded portrait by Anders Zorn (1860-1920), fetched £82,000 in Cheltenham.

THE final lot of 233 offered at Michael Bowman's latest sale at the Chudleigh Town Hall, Devon was this limewood carving of a goose wing attributed to the Anglo-German artist Sir Hubert von Herkomer (1849-1914).

Prints by Edward Wadsworth (1889-1949) are not a common sight on the market, but the Yorkshire-born artist who became a leading exponent of Vorticism was a prominent printmaker in the early stage of his career.

POLICE are appealing for help after 27 Chinese works of art were stolen from Stroud Auction Rooms in Gloucestershire a day before they were due to be sold.

DETECTIVE work by a Cornish auctioneer has led to a jail sentence for a 40-year-old former art teacher who defrauded galleries and members of the public by selling fakes.

MADE in 17th century Gdansk or Königsberg at the very height of the amber working trade in Europe, this delicate chalice with silver-gilt mounts shot to £210,000 at Lawrences latest sale in Crewkerne, Somerset.

THE existence of the elephant – “nature’s great masterpiece... the only harmless great thing”, to use John Donne’s famous description – was well known to medieval Europeans, but captive pachyderms had disappeared from the continent shortly after the demise of the Roman Empire.

HONITON in Devon is the first town to announce a major festival to mark National Antiques Week.

MORE details have come to light regarding the break-in at Long Street Antiques Centre in Tetbury during the early hours of Friday, August 26.

SOME fine early English porcelain came up at the latest sale held by Chorley's of Prinknash Abbey, Gloucestershire.

ANY perception that the demand for top English delftwares had softened seems to have been scotched by the huge competition for this 17th century London-made mug.

A VERY large, hand-drawn plan of the Titanic, used in the official inquiry after it sank in 1912, has sold for £220,000 at Wiltshire auction house, Henry Aldridge & Son.

IT is symptomatic of the changes in the Poole pottery market that the joint top selling lot in a large specialist sale last month was a 1960s rimmed dish.

SALISBURY auctioneers Woolley & Wallis saw two more lots make over £1m last week.

A £5000 reward has been offered for the return of the stock of Somerset jewellers Joseph Leonard, which was stolen in a raid on March 28.

Bristol Antiques and Collectors Fair have been forced to postpone this weekend’s event on March 6 at the Memorial Stadium.

AMONG the more unusual entries to Mallams' latest sale in Cheltenham was this early Victorian table carved from parrot coal.

MORE than 20,000 naval postcards, thousands of photographs and slides, and a large quantity of books will be put up for sale at Lawrences in Crewkerne in May.

THIS locket, believed to contain the hair of Admiral Lord Nelson to one side and Lady Emma Hamilton to the reverse, was previously unknown to Nelson experts but it turned up at Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury after being consigned by a vendor in Australia who has family connections to Portsmouth.

ANTIQUES including silver was stolen in a raid on a Cotswolds antiques centre in the early hours of Wednesday, January 19.