Canterbury

When auctioneer Tony Pratt spotted a mysterious shape in the undergrowth of a back garden in Hythe he wasn’t expecting to uncover a very large pottery bear.

Works by Namikawa Yasuyuki underline how buyers are aiming at the very best when it comes to the Japanese market ahead of a series of UK sales.

The owner of an 18th century double-manual harpsichord, the only one of its type known to exist, has been temporarily prevented from exporting it in the hope a UK buyer can be found.

On the market for the first time in at least 60 years, and in some cases for more than a century, a small collection of 17th and 18th century silver accounted for a fraction of the lots but 20% of the total at the two-day winter sale at Canterbury Auction Galleries (24% buyer’s premium).

Work by the community of mid-20th century painters in Essex known as the Great Bardfield Artists fetches strong sums on the secondary market.

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.

Not, perhaps, the face modern eyes would immediately think of captivating an emperor, but this porcelain plaque portrait of Napoleon’s first wife, Josephine, was one of a number of major attractions at Canterbury Auction Galleries’ (24% buyer’s premium) Spring Sale.

The Colt Clavier collection of historical keyboard instruments will be offered on June 7 in a sale held by Canterbury Auction Galleries in association with London specialist Piano Auctions.

A rare Western Zhou bronze, taken when the Summer Palace was sacked by British troops in 1860, sold for £410,000 (plus 20% buyer’s premium) at the Canterbury Auction Galleries.

An exceptionally rare Western Zhou bronze, taken when the Summer Palace was sacked by British troops in 1860, has been discovered in a house in a Kent seaside town.

Commonly known as a What The Butler Saw machine, a late 19th-early 20th century Mutoscope was the most alluring of a consignment of a collection of amusement arcade machines offered at Canterbury Auction Galleries (20% buyer’s premium).

A portrait thought to depict one of the most notorious characters of the Jacobean age drew strong bidding in Canterbury.