South-west England

Two alluring early-20th century British school portraits of attractive young women caught the eye in recent regional sales. Both modestly estimated, they brought similar four-figure sums.

Interest from bidders in more than 40 countries competed for what Stroud Auctions (18% buyer’s premium plus VAT) called a “world-class private collection of over 4000 military badges”.

The Church of England was Geoffrey Garner’s vocation in life – collecting military badges his hobby

Suffolk town where the TV rogue ducked and dived experiences an antiques revival. Plus, details of the Long Melford fairs scene.

This flag offered at East Bristol Auctions (18% buyer’s premium) carries inscriptions for HMS Swiftsure – British Pacific Fleet – 1945, and the Japanese cities Sasebo and Tokyo.

A First World War medal fashioned from a Mexican eight reales coin was an unusual feature of a group sold at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (23% buyer’s premium) on February 19.

This pair of 19th century continental silver-gilt figure groups is among the objects from a Rothschild collection to be sold by Woolley & Wallis later this year.

This finely modelled Hellenistic white marble figure of Aphrodite sold for £60,000 (plus 24% buyer’s premium) at Dominic Winter in South Cerney on March 5. Bidding opened at £30,000, twice the low estimate, before bids were exchanged between the internet and the phones.

Arts & Crafts enthusiasts who hoped to buy a pair of Voysey chairs at something close to their £20-40 estimate at an auction in the Cotswolds were to be disappointed.

A spectacular competition came at Woolley & Wallis’ latest picture sale as 12 bidders pursued a pair of Italian Old Masters which the auction house had spotted tucked away in a dark corner of the vendor’s top landing.

This set of table and chairs by the ever-popular Mouseman had been bought from the Kilburn workshops in the 1970s by the vendor’s parents.

The second Bristol Vintage Photograph Fair due to be held on Easter Sunday, April 12, at The Royal Photograph Society’s headquarters in the city has been cancelled.

Last year we featured the launch of the Malthouse Collective in Stroud, Gloucestershire. This offers 60 dealers and designers selling traditional antiques as well as interiors pieces and art from a listed former Victorian malthouse.

This portrait study is by Sybil Atteck (1911-75), a pioneering artist in Trinidad and Tobago of Chinese descent known for her work in watercolour.

David Lay’s (18% buyer's premium) second stand-alone Asian art sale held in Penzance was topped at £65,500 (estimate £3000-5000) by this shodana made in Meiji period Japan, c.1890.

Second-dibs sales at regional salerooms – those that follow after a major London auctioneer has cherry-picked the contents of a stately country house – can sometimes acquire the slighting epithet of ‘crumbs from a rich man’s table’.

Early-17th century Lithuanian plan sold alongside companion Dnieper river details

Though best known for his epic depictions of fiery disaster, English Romantic painter John Martin (1789-1853) also produced a series of smaller, quieter works.

This late drawing by Karl Hofer (1878-1955), the German Expressionist painter who was branded a creator of ‘degenerate art’ by the Nazis, was one of dozens consigned by his family to Taunton saleroom Greenslade Taylor Hunt (19.5% buyer’s premium).