South-west England

Queen Victoria gave many gifts to family, friends and servants, often commemorating notable events in her life.

Organiser announces 2023 launch of another decorative home and salvage event

A new decorative and salvage fair will launch next summer in the Cotswolds.

This fine First World War silver presentation model of the Vickers FB5 or Gunbus was made by Goldsmiths & Silversmiths Company (London 1916).

Outside the John Patten collection at Lawrences of Crewkerne on October 12 were several other good-quality pictures boosting the bottom line.

A silver sale at East Bristol Auctions (19% buyer’s premium) included this Wiener Werkstätte twin section bon bon dish with two glass inserts to a design by Josef Hoffmann.

As part of Henry Aldridge & Son’s auction of Titanic, White Star and Transport Memorabilia on November 19 a group of 21 lots associated with Wild West showman and powered flight pioneer Samuel Franklin Cody (1867-1913) is on offer.

The Singer 222K Featherweight is rated as one of the best sewing machines ever made.

Auction house Chorley’s has changed hands, with director Thomas Jenner-Fust buying the business with former colleague and friend Werner Freundel.

The unashamed opulence of interior decoration that became known as Le Goût Rothschild as it spread from 19th century France to Austria, Germany and Britain is a style that has always been admired.

The top-seller of the small Chinese offering from Exbury House was this colourful, elaborate 18th century cloisonné cong.

A copy of the 1543, first German language edition of a work that centuries later, in 'Printing and the Mind of Man', was declared to be “perhaps the most celebrated and most beautiful herbal ever published” was offered by Gloucestershire saleroom Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) on October 12.

In colonial Mexico cacao beans and vanilla pods assumed a similar status to tea leaves in England.

A selection of Doulton HN series rarities sold at three regional salerooms this month.

Stroud Auction Rooms’ sale on November 9-10 will feature over 1000 lots of guns, weapons, medals and militaria, including two notable collections.

Ceramics by Hans Coper (1920-81) and Lucie Rie (1902-95) have been assimilated into the collecting sphere of Modern British art with spectacular effect.

The cylindrical brush pot or bitong appears to have been introduced into the repertoire of Chinese ceramic forms in the late 1620s.

Relatively few gallantry medals available for what was short self-contained conflict, heroic stories involving highly collectable regiments, a relatively morally unambiguous backstory (for British collectors at least)… the Falklands War can generate high demand at auction.

In 1888, in response to a tender issued by the War Office, Prof Archibald Barr and Dr William Stroud submitted an application for an optical range-finder patent to the Patents Office.

Leading the sale of Fine Furniture, Works of Art & Clocks at Woolley & Wallis (25/12% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury on October 6 was a very fine pair of blue john and ormolu perfume burners by Matthew Boulton and John Fothergill.