South-west England

The simple pair of leather football boots on offer at East Bristol Auctions (17.5% buyer’s premium) this summer was not as flash as today’s examples in all colours and emblazoned with all kinds of branding and personalised messages.

Although a smaller affair than the much better-known Isle of Wight festival of the same year, the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music, held on June 27-28, 1970, at the Shepton Mallet showground, boasted perhaps the greatest UK music festival line-up of all time.

The recent Mallams (22.5% buyer’s premium) live online sale of Chinese, Japanese and Islamic art in Cheltenham included Chinese works on paper and textiles from a relative of Katherine Talati (1922-2015).

It was during the so-called Transitional period, the era of protracted civil war that marked the transition from Ming to Qing, that the centuries-old system of court-sponsored porcelain manufacture at Jingdezhen collapsed.

The response among Sixties regulars at a north London pub to the fly poster, below, advertising a gig by the High Numbers may well have been: The who?

Six months after the last Shepton Fleamarket was held at the Bath & West Showground in Somerset, the event returns on Sunday, August 16, with more than 250 stalls.

Estimated at £150-200, this Georgian dial clock stormed to £4800 at Charterhouse (25% buyer’s premium) in Sherborne. Two collectors made much of the bidding.

It’s admittedly not much to look at and just 2 x 3½in (5 x 8.5cm), but if you are a Star Wars collector this badge on offer estimated at £4000-6000 at East Bristol Auctions on July 24 means a great deal.

A letter in which Kenneth Grahame writes about the suicide of his son, Alastair, sold at East Bristol Auctions (18% buyer’s premium) for £1200.

The market for traditional British and Continental ceramics did not lie idle for three months. As ATG reports, a renewed enthusiasm greeted the first major UK sale since lockdown

Eighteen months ago, dealer Lydia Wood launched an antiques trail in the small town of Ashburton on the edge of the Dartmoor National Park in south Devon.

This rare 2in (5cm) English delftware ointment pot, c.1775, carries the inscription in manganese 'The Queen’s Dentifrice'.

This spiral-moulded cream jug decorated with a drummer boy is from a well-documented Caughley tea and coffee service painted with figural subjects by Fidelle Duvivier during a brief period of work at the Chamberlain factory in Worcester in October 1792.

Estimated at just £60-80, a rare Ericsson telephone sold for £10,500 (plus 17% buyer’s premium) at Wessex Auction Rooms in Chippenham.

The German-born watercolourist and musician John Baptist Malchair (c.1730-1812) was a key figure in 18th century Oxford.

'Still Life with Red Chrysanthemums' is among the works featured at The Fosse Gallery in Stow on the Wold as it celebrates its 40th anniversary. It was painted by Bristol artist Karen Edwards, a regular exhibitor at the now historic gallery.

As might be expected, local scenes were an important feature of David Lay’s Cornish art sale on June 11. Among them was a view of Penzance’s Market Jew Street by Norman Garstin (1847-1926) that depicted a location only a 10-minute walk from the saleroom.