Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood

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.

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.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales including a Walter Greaves Thames scene.

This 18th century English provincial school full-length portrait depicts the jester Black John. He was in the employ of the famously eccentric John Arscott (1718-88) of the Tetcott estate in Devon, said to be the last man in England to keep a professional jester.

With an Irish silver ‘seal salver’ gleaming at the first Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (23% buyer’s premium) sale of the year (ATG No 2427), Italy, China and Russia provided other highlights.

On the death of the monarch, or when a statesman left office, it was required by law that any seals of royal authority be broken and defaced.

A bid of £5000 from a Contemporary art gallery in London secured this post-war portrait by the writer and Vorticist painter Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957).

A flurry of bids emerged for this late-17th century canine study at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood of Exeter (23% buyer’s premium).

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales including a Stanley Spencer sketch.