South-west England

There has been a weekly Friday antiques and collectors’ market in Cirencester’s 19th century Corn Hall in Market Square for more than 40 years.

“Our December event is always a busy one and we’ll be inside the Showering Pavilion and outside at the showground as usual”, said Sue Ede of SP Fairs.

Estimated at £40,000-60,000, a lacquer cabinet from Edo period Japan sold for £105,000 at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on November 23.

A suffragette’s true identity may have been uncovered by an auction house.

A silver war badge issued to Lance-Corporal Harold Sandford Mugford of the Machine Gun Corps was a surprise highlight of a Gloucestershire sale.

Painted with an image of an urn to the front cover of its vellucent binding and with a view of Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire to the rear, the Book of Common Prayer & Book of Psalmes shown below was printed in 1774 by T Wright & W Gill for the University of Oxford.

Paintings of caves including a view from a Channel Island in the spotlight at two salerooms

Portraits by James Sharples (1751-1811) appear to make less money than you might expect given the calibre of his sitters.

Among the book lots offered as part of an October 7-8 sale at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) the earliest was a Burgundian ‘Hours of the Virgin’ manuscript.

In a recent Financial Times article titled 'Dangerous baubles for boys', historian and style journalist Nick Foulkes commented that a friend had “described my hands as looking like a cabinet of curiosities trying to emulate a pair of knuckledusters”.

As very personal items, typically weighing little more than an ounce of bullion, the most numerous silver survivors from the 17th century are spoons.

A small portrait sketch of a young boy by George Henry Harlow (1787-1819) drew lively interest at the recent Fine Art & Antiques sale in Gloucestershire.

A group of dealers will be putting themselves on show for once instead of displaying art and antiques.

Among the best-performing lots at the Woolley & Wallis (25/12% buyer’s premium) Ceramics & Glass sale was a rare Wedgwood black basalt seal.

Distinguished naval officer admired by Nelson was also a talented watercolour painter

Sold for £16,000 in a September 23 sale was an album of 41 watercolour studies of birds produced by William Weston Young (1776-1847).

Anglo-Chinese huanghuali bureau cabinet was spotted just down the road from saleroom

The pre-Christmas market organised by Bath Vintage and Antique Markets this year runs on Sunday, November 28.

A great many of the lots that brought prices in the £1000-10,000 range in a recent Cheltenham sale were multiples of varying size – some running to as many as a hundred volumes – but noted here are a couple with that same Spetchley Park provenance that can be more precisely defined.