Norfolk

Responsible for the flowers at the Queen’s coronation, the society florist Constance Spry (1886-1960) is also credited with the ‘democratisation’ of flower arranging.

An unexpected star turn of a recent Norfolk sale was a job lot of works from the library of the late Ron Fiske of Morningthorpe Manor, an East Anglian collector whose books a Norfolk auction house first started dispersing a few years years ago.

Publisher tried to link book to the poet to boost sales but a revised version was issued instead

Sold for £4600 in a February 6 sale held in the Chichester salerooms of Stride & Son (18% buyer’s premium) was an album of cut-paper work produced by Elizabeth Cobbold c.1810-20.

December 10 marked a significant step in the history of specialist sporting and antique gun auction house Holts (25-20% buyer’s premium).

Although catalogued as Sèvres, a porcelain cup and saucer sold by Keys (20% buyer’s premium) of Aylsham for an unexpected £5500 (estimate £100-200) on November 27 was by the factory’s precursor at Vincennes. The saucer had the date letter A for c.1754 and the cup B for c.1755.

Launched in Norfolk 10 years ago by local Zoe Keegan, the Little Vintage Lover Fairs team will be back at the same venue where it all started in the pretty coastal village of Blakeney for the winter Christmas fair on Sunday, December 1, at the village hall.

The intriguing name for Benjamin Smith’s Norfolk business came from an ink sgraffito painting he bought at Spitalfields antiques market.

Focus on one of only two notable women painters to be associated with the Norwich School.

Account of a double killing in 19th century Norwich heads a look at two-day auction.

In September 2017 we featured Charlie King and Sam Sparrow, both then aged 13, who were offered places by Philip and Claire Crosthwaite at their monthly Hingham Antiques Fairs in Norfolk.

Clock produced by Englishman influential in French horology impresses in Norfolk auction.

This c.1790 Georgian mahogany bracket clock by John Scott is among the stock of Olde Time Fine Antique Clocks & Barometers, which holds its second open weekend this summer.

Best-seller and one of the biggest surprises at the white-glove sale of a mechanical music collection was a musical box, the catalogue entry of which could be summarised as ‘famous name, doesn’t work’.

A bucolic Norfolk landscape by English artist John Alfred Arnesby-Brown (1866- 1953) emerged as one of the top sellers in an auction dedicated to East Anglian art at local Aylsham saleroom Keys (20% buyer’s premium).

Organised by rugs and kilims dealer Malcolm Cannell for the third year, the annual Bayfield Hall Antiques Fair takes place on Sunday, June 9.

An 1831, third (first illustrated) edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a version that not only contained a new introduction but added a new chapter to that famous work, sold for £2800 in a Norfolk sale.

Keys’ fine sale on July 24-26 will include more examples of porcelain from the local Lowestoft factory.

At the second outing of the Norfolk and Suffolk Antique Dealers Association (NASADA) antiques fair, local dealer Philip Crosthwaite, who launched the group last year, will be bringing this Victorian Noah’s Ark toy, below. With 90 original carved wooden animals, it is priced at £895.

The March Fine Sale at Keys in Aylsham, the first since a management buyout, includes both a group of Lowestoft rarities and pieces by other factories.