Auction Reports

This Fijian kava bowl, or daveniyaqona, carved in the form of a shallow figure, would have been used for both the consumption of kava (yaqona – the intoxicating liquor of the pepper plant) by priests during religious rites and to hold sacred oil.

A double-gourd dragon vase was one of two excellent Chinese pieces to emerge from a deceased Hampshire estate into Selborne auction house Hannam’s (23% buyer’s premium) rooms on May 4.

Intended to keep servants warm in the draughty watches of day and night at the entrances to grand houses, this porter’s chair was bought at Christie’s in 1989 and used in the vendor’s living room ever since.

Remarkable Birkett family archive sold at Rogers Jones auction reflected the earliest days of organised sport.

John Douglas’ interest in antique base metalware started over 60 years ago.

John Gresham was a third-generation member of a wealthy Hull timber-importing family.

The Annie Marchant (‘Breadboard Annie’) collection of domestic and country antiques offered in Kent on April 12-13 produced many strong prices.

The choice element of a mixed lot offered in Chichester on April 16 was a Georgian walnut mitre plane stamped for Christopher Gabriel.

From 1932-34 Clarice Cliff was the art director for a project involving nearly 30 artists of the day to promote good design on tableware.

Fifteen furniture lots make five-figure sums as Dreweatts bidders show encouraging confidence

This unmarked teapot and cover, offered by Dreweatts, dates from the first decade of porcelain production at the Chelsea factory.

Morphets (20% buyer’s premium) of Harrogate sold a Mouseman bureau for a tub-thumping £36,000 on April 15.

A Mitchells (22% buyer’s premium) sale included selected contents from Greystoke Castle near Penrith – home to the Howard family for over 500 years.

A Victoria Cross group awarded to a British soldier who volunteered to carry a vital message to a stranded platoon at Mericourt in October 1918, in the knowledge that five of his comrades had already been in killed in turn making earlier attempts, sold for £200,000.

Not to be confused with the modern Peter Rabbit series by Wedgwood, much scarcer teawares were made by the Grimwade’s factory in the 1920s.

Estimated at just £100-200, a rare automaton of a stereotypical Chinaman smoking an opium pipe sold for £7400 at McTear’s (24% buyer’s premium).

Armorial head linked to the palaces of Henry VIII when he was married to Anne Boleyn.

Original photographs of a well-known Pre-Raphaelite beauty – the muse of William Holman Hunt and the mother of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell – sold for £2600 at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium).

South London auction house Roseberys (25% buyer’s premium) was instructed to sell the collection of Herbert Kennard on March 26.

Two English Orientalists made the biggest impression at a recent sale at Gorringe’s (23% buyer’s premium) in Lewes.