Shropshire

This ventriloquist’s dapper dummy was one of the surprise star turns at Halls’ (23% buyer’s premium) Shrewsbury auction.

It was when the book was in the process of being catalogued by Bretells (19% buyer’s premium) of Newport, Shropshire, that a second impression copy of Tolkien’s The Hobbit was seen to bear the author’s signature.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Illustrated with 76 hand-coloured flags, a 1794 Signal Book for the Ships of the Line sold to an online bidder for £11,000 in a Shrewsbury sale.

Shropshire is a fertile county for antiques centres and shops.

Organisers prepare for events in Worcestershire and Shropshire including new fairs.

Believed to date from the mid-17th century, this double portrait is a fascinating painting on many accounts.

Halls’ (23% buyer’s premium) Summer auction in Shrewsbury on June 16 included a private collection of nine pieces of Boucheron jewellery.

Two very different ceramic objects illuminated The Spring Auction at Halls (20% buyer’s premium) in Shrewsbury on March 17.

This coming Easter weekend may be quieter than usual but many of us can plan to meet up with family and friends again in the coming weeks and months as lockdown restrictions ease around the UK.

Reappearing in the same saleroom after a six-year interval, a landscape by Edmund Morison Wimperis (1835-1900) attracted attention at Halls (20% buyer’s premium) of Shrewsbury.

Offered with moderate estimates, two Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) etchings from the Vollard Suite drew demand at the recent timed online sale of Modern & Contemporary art at Halls (20% buyer’s premium).

This Chelsea dish moulded as a vine leaf and painted with polychrome fruit is a textbook production from the Red Anchor period c.1755-58.

Florence Nightingale was a name that figured prominently among the 130 lots of books and ephemera offered as part of a September 2 sale in Shrewsbury.

Organising duo diversify to attract visitors to this month’s racecourse event

In the hierarchy of Royal Worcester fruit painters Frank Roberts (1857-1920) comes close to the top.

Pictured here are three good examples of Worcester hard-paste porcelain from the early decades of the 19th century – at which time there was a trio of factories operating in the city.

A legend of golf is represented at Shropshire saleroom Mullock’s Golfing Memorabilia and Antique & Modern Fishing Tackle auction on August 13-14.

This portrait that emerged at the March 18 auction at Halls (20% buyer’s premium) of Shrewsbury appears to be closely based on Sir Peter Lely’s (1618-80) portrait of Mary II as a young girl that now resides in the Royal Collection.