South-west England

This finely modelled ancient Egyptian bronze cat head with original large gold hoop earrings was the uncontested star of David Lay’s latest auction in Penzance, Cornwall.

Exceptional pieces of antique furniture play by quite different rules to the more standard items when it comes to price performance.

Sherborne auctioneers Charterhouse have been instructed to sell the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) and Distinguished Flying Medal (DFM) pair awarded to a member of 617 Squadron, more commonly known as The Dambusters.

Sherborne auctioneers Charterhouse are on a roll with Republican period (1911-49) porcelain.

The stock of the Austrian-born British studio potter Lucie Rie (1902-95) continues to rise in the saleroom.

Lady Jane Franklin (1791-1875) gained worldwide admiration for her efforts to trace her husband’s disappearance on his fatal 1845 voyage seeking the North West Passage.

This 17in (43cm) Fang bieri guardian palmwood figure from Gabon in West Africa set a house record at Netherhampton Salerooms in Salisbury when it sold for £88,000.

A walnut secretaire cabinet by Peter Waals (1870-1937) has sold for £34,000 at Bearne Hampton & Littlewood in Exeter.

Mallams of Cheltenham saw this jade rolling horse, part of a private collection of Chinese handstone carvings, sell for £170,000 at their latest Asian art sale.

Auctioneer Philip Allwood is pictured here looking pleased as punch to be standing in front of a big barn door because it marks the completion of Moore Allen & Innocent’s new offices.

The Christopher Foley collection of British commemorative medals will be sold at Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis on October 16. The sale is the most comprehensive of its type seen for a century or more.

When dispersing the contents of an artist’s studio, there is always the question of whether to sell the works all in one go or drip them onto the market over a longer period of time.

There are signs that last year’s publication of ‘The Della Robbia Pottery’ by Peter Hyland has given a lift to the market for the distinctive wares produced in Birkenhead by Harold Rathbone and Conrad Dressler between 1894-1906.

Among the most desirable of all needlework samplers are those associated with pupils at the Ackworth School, founded as a co-educational boarding school in 1779 by the Quaker physician John Fothergill and still thriving today.

Maori boat-shaped feather boxes – or ‘waka huia’ – are infrequent visitors to UK salerooms so it was unusual to see two examples sold in close proximity this summer.

The big question at David Lay’s auctioneers in Penzance next week: Are these bonds worth a few hundred pounds or up to £3.6m each?

An Arts & Crafts dining room suite made by the prominent Manchester designer Edgar Wood has sold for £42,000 at Gardiner Houlgate of Corsham near Bath.

The Roman artist Bartolomeo Pinelli (1781-1835) is best known as a prolific engraver, selling to tourists his prints portraying the everyday life and costumes of characters encountered in and around the Piazza della Rotonda.

Knocking others off their perch, Salisbury’s Woolley & Wallis improved upon their own auction record for Martin Brothers with the £75,000 sale of this bird jar to Gloucestershire British art pottery dealers AD Antiques.

When it comes to 20th century sporting pictures, there is no bigger name than Sir Alfred Munnings (1878-1959). Earlier this month, a sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury sale saw the consignment of certainly one of the more notable works by the Mendham, Suffolk-born artist to have appeared in the regions over recent times.