South-west England

Ahead of its season-opening September 18 jewellery sale, Chiswick Auctions invited Jessica Diamond, the suitably-named jewellery editor for 'Condé Nast Traveller', to pick her top 10 lots from the catalogue.

Early British army uniforms were the highlight of an extensive single-owner militaria collection amassed by a long-standing Nottinghamshire family which was offered at Stroud Auctions.

An intriguing portrait by an unidentified hand of a Royal Navy admiral in a wig and blue gilt braided uniform was a star entry at Cotswold saleroom Chorley’s (20/15/12.5/10% buyer’s premium).

This Old Master painting, above, of The Adoration of the Magi in the manner of Italian painter Vincenzo Carducci (c.1576-1638) led a recent Dorset sale.

The monthly Bath Vintage & Antiques Market at the city’s listed Victorian Green Park Station is now in its seventh year.

As well as 150 inside stands and up to a few hundred outside, plenty more is in the mix at the Antique Fairs Cornwall event over the August Bank Holiday weekend at the Wadebridge Showground in north Cornwall.

A major collection of late 19th and early 20th century jewellery amassed by a Buckinghamshire collector over half a century will come to auction this autumn.

It’s a rare sale these days at which an English furniture standard challenges quality Chinese pieces for price, but the top end of the trade certainly rated a 6ft 3in (1.9m) William and Mary walnut and featherbanded bureau cabinet offered by Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (21% buyer’s premium).

From 1936-45, St Ives artist John Wells (1907-2000) embarked on a series of labour-intensive creations while working as a GP on the Isles of Scilly.

Cirencester saleroom Moore Allen & Innocent (20% buyer’s premium) enjoyed a taste of India’s fast-growing art market when three pictures by the Indian folk artist Jamini Roy (1887-1972) were scooped up for a total of £24,500.

Sold for £2500 in a Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) sale of July 25 was an enormous archive of work produced in the 1950s and ‘60s by Leslie Starke (1905-74), a cartoonist once very popular in both the UK and US.

Private bidders were overtaken as dealers found warmth in the best traditional furniture and chattels offered at auction.

A selection of highlights from the Chorley's auction on July 24-25 and the Tennants sale on July 21 (also see main Auction Reports story this edition).

Two French corkscrews were the top lots of Henry Aldridge & Son’s auction of the first tranche of a single-owner collection of around 450 examples.

Demand for Scottish artist with a ‘distinctive personality’ drives a good auction result in Somerset.

A very suitable buyer emerged for an 19th century picture of The Artists Rifles by John Evan Hodgson (1831-95) offered in Exeter.