South-west England

Napoleon Bonaparte’s magnetism remains as forceful as ever in UK salerooms.

The Box, a museum, gallery and archive set to open in Plymouth in May, has acquired a ‘colossal and extraordinary grotesque grinning crab’ by the Martin Brothers.

A Westerwald salt-glaze jug offered at Reeman Dansie's latest sale in Colchester was worked with stylised tulips and a medallion with the portraits of William of Orange and Queen Mary.

Newcomers to the 44-dealer annual Wilton House Antiques Fair include the Vangelli Gallery in London with Asian decorative art, the West Sussex antique dealership Wakelin & Linfield which sells English and Continental furniture and Shine on Design, specialising in Art Deco pieces.

In the vibrant world of British decorative fairs, 'The Bath Decorative & Antiques Fair' is a market leader. Now in its 31st staging, it opens its doors to the trade on March 5 and welcomes the public from March 6-8.

Two institutions dominated bidding for the notebooks and correspondence of a significant Regency period female author at the Cotswold Auction Company in Cheltenham last week.

Star turn among some 120 lots of playing cards offered as part of a Stroud Auctions (18% buyer’s premium) sale was the last to be offered. A complete set of Charles Hodges’ Astronomical Playing Cards, it sold online for £3000.

Group of paintings by one of the less well-known masters of the medium comes to light

The Victorian artist John Bagnold Burgess (1829- 97), grandson of a painter who counted Thomas Gainsborough among his pupils, was best known as a painter of genre scenes.

The first of the year’s two spring dates for the popular Vintage Bazaar held in the West Country will be on Saturday, March 14.

Judith Howard (1945-2019), collector, part-time dealer, museum curator, author, TV expert and lecturer, was a self-confessed ‘maximalist’. Every shelf and wall space in her Wiltshire end-of-terrace was there to be filled. Dusting was a chore reserved for just one day a year.

Drawings by two later followers of the Pre-Raphaelites drew competition at separate regional salerooms.

The opening lot of the Five Centuries sale at Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium) in Edinburgh on February 5 was this previously unrecorded maiolica handled and spouted wet drug jar.

As ever, the most recent sale held by Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) contained a great many maps and atlases and shown below is one of the highlights.

An early 17th century Limoges enamel draw purse attracted a flurry of bids at Chorley’s Attic Sale in Gloucestershire. Set with period portraits of a lady on one side and a gentleman on the other, the accessory has remained intact for about 400 years – in most examples the fabric has deteriorated significantly.

Although outwardly simple objects, cedar ‘bent corner’ chests, still made today by the indigenous people of the Pacific North West, employ a number of sophisticated woodworking techniques.