South-east England

Always popular items, a Georgian lead cistern offered at Summers Place Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) was also rare in being circular. Usually they are rectangular, having stood against a wall connected to downpipes.

Underpinned by an 81-lot consignment from the estate of the late Fred Sansome, a famous figure in the world of model railways, the Transport Sale at Dreweatts (25% buyer’s premium) was led by scratch-built locomotives by equally revered names.

A near sell-out show at The Redfern Gallery in London in 1963 immediately established Patrick Procktor (1936-2003), the Dublin-born painter, as a star of the London art scene at the age of just 27.

Sold alongside a pile of Victorian green-glazed leaf plates and dishes, the primary appeal of this lot offered in a weekly sale at Gorringe’s (21% buyer’s premium) of Lewes was the whimsical majolica cheese dish.

Original paintings by Abstract artist Nicolas de Stael (1914-55) rarely appear at auction outside the main salerooms in London, Paris and New York.

Many figures involved in the booming 19th century art industry of livestock portraiture had no formal training.

The first printed copy of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica was published in Strasbourg as early as c.1475 with subsequent versions printed in Vienna (1513), Strasbourg again (1500), Haguenau (1506), Paris (1544) and Antwerp (1550).

Variety was certainly in evidence in a West Sussex sale, where the teenage journal of a young stained-glass maker, two broadside ballads and an illustrated dummy for 'Down with Skool!' all brought much higher than predicted bids.

Offered with an a/f catalogue caveat, this early 20th century marine chronometer, below, quadrupled expectations at Chichester saleroom Henry Adams (20% buyer’s premium).

Newbury’s Special Auction Services is to expand into a double-height saleroom in the new year.

Turbulent as politics are today, they have yet to reach the rumbustious heights of a notorious 1826 by-election in Northumberland, memories of which were revisited at Newcastle auction house Anderson & Garland (20% buyer’s premium).

A late Victorian diamond cluster necklet with an estimated total weight of 14.4cts sold in its original fitted case for £10,500 at Richard Winterton (20% buyer’s premium), Lichfield.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

This 21 x 15in (54 x 39cm) watercolour, below, probably depicting the New Julfa quarter of Isfahan, is by the Armenian-Iranian painter Sumbat Kiureghian (1913- 99).

Two English furniture ‘discoveries’ excelled against modest hopes at auction in mid-September. Top-end London dealers bought both pieces.

Amassed by one of the longest-serving members of the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club), a group of cricketing lots notched up a number of auction highlights last month.

Peter Dingley (1923-2018), who died last year aged 95, is a name synonymous with the best of modern British craft. David Whiting, author of 'Modern British Potters & Their Studios' (2009), described him as “a remarkable member of the small band of post-war pioneering gallerists who supported British ceramics”.

Emmerdale actor’s love of Ayrton and circle seen at Tetsworth estate sale

A group of five rare bronzes by Joseph Durham (1814- 77) from the Gould collection will be offered at The Canterbury Auction Galleries on November 26-27.

Bellmans in Wisborough Green, West Sussex is to offer two watercolours by Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) as part of a Fine Paintings sale on October 15. Both come from a local private collection.