South-west England

Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty, has been a favourite subject in art since ancient times.

Space for an oddity in your vinyl collection? David Bowie fans obviously feel that way.

As the sale title suggested, plenty of Bowie material appeared in Omega’s (28% buyer’s premium inc VAT) David Bowie & Glam Rock Vinyl Records & Memorabilia auction earlier this year.

With hindsight, the boast made by the Flying Steam Company – 'To China in Twenty-Four Hours Certain' – was a tad ambitious.

Experiments with porcelain at the Swansea factory began in 1814 with the arrival of William Billingsley and Samuel Walker from the Nantgarw China Works.

Having postponed the sale in November and again in January, Chorley’s finally got to sell an exceptional private collection of early English porcelain in Prinknash Abbey, Gloucestershire, on March 24.

The Winter Antiques Sale at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) was topped by consecutive bids of £17,000 each for two Regency white marble busts.

“It’s been heart-breaking to keep cancelling fairs as people are so keen to trade but the good news is that our event in the Westpoint Arena at the Devon Showground, Exeter, is going ahead on Saturday and Sunday, June 5-6,” says Nick Bayliss of Continuity Fairs.

This 3in (7.5cm) brass and ivorine fishing reel is inscribed to the face 'Ustonson & Peters, Makers to the Queen, 48 Bell Yard, Temple Bar, London'.

The postponed January auction at Gloucestershire saleroom Chorley’s will take place on March 23-24.

British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill memorabilia in the form of slippers, brandy balloon and cigar box.

If you are a birdwatcher, you need a good pair of binoculars.

John Faber’s mezzotint version of a portrait by John Vanderbank of Nicholas Saunderson (1682-1739), a celebrated blind scientist and mathematician, was bid to 10 times the high estimate in a Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) general clear-out sale.

The medal group of a colonel believed to be the most heavily decorated Military Police officer in the history of the corps sold for a mid-estimate £2400.

British Studio Ceramic is Messums Wiltshire’s third annual show.

Bolstered by a strong melt price of over £15 an ounce, domestic silver hollowwares and flatwares are selling strongly. However, it is the pieces of collectable value – novelties, provincial rarities and the work of the best Georgian, Regency and Victorian smiths – that continue to perform best in the market

This rare 1940s Longines British military issue is appropriately nicknamed the ‘tuna can.’

This eye-catching 19th century Ceylonese ebony and inlaid breakfast table came with intriguing stories about its provenance in an auction catalogue.

A tankard said to be made from the hide of Oliver Cromwell’s warhorse was the toast of an auction in Dorchester.