Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood

Translating simply as ‘a box with drawers’ but so much more exotic than that, a rare Spanish Renaissance caja con cajones was the outstanding lot at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood’s (25% buyer’s premium) quarterly fine art sale in Exeter.

RAF Wing Commander Terence Helfer’s Distinguished Flying Cross citation stated: “He has undertaken many hazardous missions…”

A handsome group of eight volumes commemorating the Great Exhibition of 1851 sold in Exeter had been presented to one of its commissioners, England’s serial Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone.

A copy of Richard Hakluyt’s 'The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation' takes a six-figure sum at Devon sale.

Antarctic maps take highest prices in collection relating to key Terra Nova crew member

Chinese trick or surprise cups were made to deceive a drinker and illustrate the classical paradigm that modesty brings gain and arrogance results in loss.

Walter Sickert and Winifred Nicholson feature in Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood's picture sale.

Naive-style Cornish art has been on a good run at regional auctions over recent months.

Bid to a far higher than predicted £1000 in a recent West Country sale was a broadside whose lengthy title read: 'Life, Trial, and Execution of T.Cooper. Who was executed at Newgate this Morning for the Murder of Timothy Daly, a Policeman, at Highbury.'

Memorabilia relating to members of a pioneering elite group of female pilots who flew in the Second World War soared over estimates at two auction houses.

Our regular selection of previews from UK and Irish salerooms.

A special focus on stand-out lots in decorative art & design auctions coming up this month.

Two traditional drinking vessels brought surprising toasts to European craftsmen at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (23% buyer’s premium) in Exeter.

Collected by a Scottish enthusiast, 26 railway station totems – the enamel signs introduced across the UK by newly nationalised British Rail in 1948 – gained UK-wide interest at McTear’s (24% buyer’s premium) in Glasgow.

Good art at a great price in regional sales

This spiral-moulded cream jug decorated with a drummer boy is from a well-documented Caughley tea and coffee service painted with figural subjects by Fidelle Duvivier during a brief period of work at the Chamberlain factory in Worcester in October 1792.

Essay warns about considerable perils of the ‘indecent custom’ of burials in churchyards

With the UK auction calendar yet to undergo significant changes and cancellations due to the coronavirus outbreak, many sales took place last week. Here are three highlights from around the country.