South-west England

Among the more eagerly contested entries to the Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) sale on January 24 was a late 19th century replica of the Alfred Jewel: the great example of Anglo-Saxon goldsmithing found in Somerset in 1693 and today one of the most popular exhibits at the Ashmolean Museum.

A rare Longines centre seconds military wristwatch – a type developed in 1944 for the rigours of airborne work by the Research & Development team of the War Department – sold for a multi-estimate £11,200 at Barbara Kirk (15% buyer’s premium) in Penzance on November 27 last year.

Rare work by artist best known for his Lincolnshire views is a highlight of Dorset sale.

Works by two artists who made the ocean their muse were the focus of a small collection at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (21% buyer’s premium) on January 29.

Portrait miniatures and sporting pictures were chief among the solid sellers in a traditional assemblage of paintings at Chorley’s (20% buyer’s premium) Country House sale in Gloucestershire on January 29.

This inter-war ‘English school’ portrait of a seated gentleman wearing a bow tie, bought for around £150 three decades ago, sold for an unexpected £7600 at Charterhouse (21% buyer’s premium) on January 17. The unfinished 4ft 2in x 3ft 4in (1.27 x 1.01m) oil was dated 1922 but unsigned.

Offered to a packed and enthusiastic saleroom, the 750-lot silver sale at Lawrences (22% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne was divided into three parts: an extraordinary reference library, a broad sweep of the market for British and Continental white metal and a niche single-owner collection. It brought two-and-three-quarter cheers.

Textiles represent a wide and varied collecting field, a huge range of which is displayed in the show 'Material: Textile' at Messums Wiltshire, from practical pieces to intricately conceived works of art.

This late 19th century cameo glass vase by the highly collectable Stourbridge maker Stevens & Williams was the outstanding offering among the 195 lots at Michael J Bowman’s (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale at Chudleigh on January 19.

A set of four Cotswold School Arts & Crafts wall sconces, one shown below, was catalogued by Moore Allen & Innocent (20% buyer’s premium) as in the Wild Strawberry pattern and in the manner of Ernest Gimson (1864-1919).

“There’s no money around in January” is the refrain you often hear from businesses in the new year. But, as we know, the auction world behaves differently from other commercial markets.

This Aesthetic movement X-frame armchair took £11,000 against an estimate of just £100-150 at Lawrences of Crewkerne.

The antiques-rich town of Honiton in Devon is famed for its bobbin lacemaking since the 16th century.

The Thomas Del Mar (24% buyer’s premium) sale in London on December 5 included several excellent pairs of English pistols.

The traditionally ‘dead’ period between Christmas and New Year was enlivened by the December 28 sale at Wotton Auction Rooms (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Gloucestershire – to the extent that more than 20,000 people suffering withdrawal symptoms worldwide viewed it online and 1360 of them registered to bid.

Greenslade Taylor Hunt’s (19.5% buyer’s premium) first sale of the year got off to a bright start with a Singaporean painting sailing to £19,000.

Historically the first major sale of the year, the January ‘furniture’ auction at Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) turns eyes towards Salisbury for evidence of what the next 12 months will bring.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.