Essex

Items from the homes of MJ Long (1939-2018) and Colin ‘Sandy’ St John Wilson (1922-2007), the husband and wife team that designed the British Library, come for sale at Sworders in Stansted Mountfitchet later this month.

Provincial by geography but far from provincial in outlook, auction houses from Essex to the Yorkshire Dales underlined the international nature of their trade at recent auctions. Cosmopolitanism covered both what was on offer and who was buying.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales including a Herbert Thomas Dicksee polar bear print.

A pair of engravings after Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1525-69) sold for more than six-times estimate at auction in Essex.

This rare piece of Cork silver of Irish Republican interest sold for £4000 (plus 23% premium) at Sworders latest sale.

Morris record takes the headlines but his pupil is also in demand at same sale.

The year after Cedric Morris painted his verdant Foxgloves in 1932, a severe drought cut through much of southern Britain. The parched soil and the hardship it brought were a source of artistic inspiration for those who painted the form and the character of the rural landscape.

London art dealer Philip Mould was the successful bidder for three works by Cedric Morris (1889-1982) sold in Essex last week. One set a new auction record for the artist plantsman.

Stansted Mountfitchet auction house Sworders is growing its sales programme and headcount with an increased focus on London.

Diaries, journals and letters kept by Lady Anne Cullum (1807-95) of Hardwick House, near Bury St Edmunds, sold for a total of around £8000 in a recent East Anglian auction.

The first tranche of a private collection of predominantly Far Eastern maps and charts sold for more than £500,000 at Reeman Dansie and included a house record.

Auction includes collection of Modernist works breaking away from south Asian tradition

Proceeds of painting by artist-plantsman Cedric Morris will benefit Benton End – the house where it was painted and home of the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing

This Italian marble bust of an emperor, catalogued as 17th century after the antique, provided a moment of saleroom drama at Sworders’ Fine Interiors auction in Stansted on September 10.

Could these be the opera glasses used by Mary Lincoln on the night her husband was assassinated? Colchester auction house Reeman Dansie will offer them for sale on September 24-25 with a guide price of £10,000-20,000.

Purchased for £1 from a Hertfordshire charity shop earlier this year, a Qianlong famille rose wall vase will carry an estimate of over £50,000 at Sworders in the autumn.