South-east England

A well-known antiques centre on the point of closure last year after 20 years of trading – and saved in no small part by the social media reach of ATG – will shortly celebrate its first year under new ownership.

More than £35,000 worth of Modern British art from a single-owner collection sold at Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium) in Winchester on June 27-28.

Penman Antiques Fairs’ third annual event at Burford School includes among its offerings a classic ceramic lion figure by Swedish designer Lisa Larson.

Entered from the same consignor, two c.1810 mahogany cellarettes were offered singly, rather than as a near pair by Mallams (20% buyer’s premium) at Abingdon. However, after two centuries, they will remain together after selling to the same private buyer on the phone.

Wristwatch expert Adrian Hailwood has joined Dreweatts as a senior specialist.

This red coral necklace had formed part of The International Fisheries Exhibition staged at the Royal Horticultural Society grounds in South Kensington in 1883.

A good helping of late Victorian pictures featured among the top prices on June 6 at Lawrences (20% buyer’s premium) of Bletchingley in Surrey.

The Meissen model of Count Bruhl’s Tailor was a major attraction at Hampshire auction house Jacobs & Hunt (26% buyer’s premium).

This hitherto unknown iron – part of select group of perhaps a dozen very early golf clubs from the late 17th or early 18th century – emerged at Gorringe’s in Lewes on June 26.

Three 18th century English carved and painted wooden dolls, in the same family for over two centuries, were sold at Specialist Auction Services of Newbury on June 19.

Denys Eyre Bower (1905-77) bought for £6000 the 17th century Chiddingstone Castle, near Edenbridge in Kent, filled it to the turrets with his collections of Japanese swords and lacquer, Egyptian antiquities, Stuart and Jacobite history and Buddhism pieces and opened the place to the public.

Putting a third major collection of highly specialist and highly priced material onto the market within little over three years might seem to be asking too much of a limited number of wealthy enthusiasts.

A two-day fair set for June 23-24 has had to be cancelled.

A quartet of oils by the contemporary British painter Sherree Valentine-Daines (b.1959) produced multi-estimate prices when they went under the hammer in Sussex.

Advertising and souvenir fans from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries received a mixed reception at the April 10 Special Auction Services sale at Newbury devoted to works collected by the late Martin Willcocks.