South-west England

Does the Contemporary art auction market need levelling up?

Distinctive plaques made to mark births are unique to the Suffolk town’s porcelain factory.

The Minton ‘fungi and foxes’ tureen is among the rarest of all majolica game pie dishes.

This little-known theatrical portrait was painted in 1796 by Johan Zoffany (1733-1810) towards the end of his career.

Watercolour of Oxford by the Victorian arbiter of taste benefits from attractive estimate.

An area of specific current interest is high-quality English 19th century clocks with precision movements housed in carriage or mantel cases.

Two large 18th century paintings of figures at the port of Antwerp drew plenty of comment when they went on display at the South Cerney saleroom of Dominic Winter in the run-up to its July 21 sale.

Doubling its mid-estimate to sell at £50,000, one of the top lots in a sale of September 7 was Paulo Forlani’s Il Disegno del discoperto della nova Franza…

This camera script produced for the ‘Waldorf Salad’ episode from the second series of Fawlty Towers was offered by East Bristol Auctions (19% buyer’s premium) in a timed online sale that ended on August 23,

The ‘property of a lady’, this concertina-style wallet book by Beatrix Potter, 'The Story of Miss Moppet', is a first edition published by Frederick Warne & Co, London & New York, 1906.

Artist’s huge and intrictately detailed watercolours depict famous capital landmarks

The Cotswold Auction Company (22% buyer’s premium) offered this version of the well-known Pilkington’s Lancastrian St George and the Dragon charger in Cheltenham.

Scenes of rural life in the Outback are the most common subject of the prolific and highly inventive Australian painter Kevin ‘Pro’ Hart (1928-2006).

On October 12 Gloucestershire saleroom Dominic Winter is offering a first English edition of Picasso: Toreros by Jaime Sabartés, London & Monte Carlo: Anton Zwemmer & André Sauret, 1961, estimated at £1000-1500.

Estimated at £3000-4000, this 9½ x 12in (24 x 30.5cm) albumen print by Julia Margaret Cameron of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is offered in the Books, Maps, Manuscripts & Photography auction on September 15 at Lawrences of Crewkerne.

In exceptionally fine condition and probably never worn, a c.1730-40 embroidered silk skirt offered at Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) also had a back story adding to its attraction.

A lot offering Action Man outfits and accessories from the flock hair period c.1970 sold for 100 times the low estimate at a Devon saleroom thanks to a considerable rarity it contained.

This textbook Edwardian Arts & Crafts planished silver chalice by Omar Ramsden and fellow Sheffield-born designer Alwyn Carr, pictured below, is of extra interest for its inscription.

Among the lots catching bidders’ eyes in the last few months were a number of intriguing portraits that came up at sales in south-west England.

The Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas sale at Woolley & Wallis on September 21 includes 270 lots from the collection of tribal and pre-Columbian art assembled by Romy Rey of Richmond, Surrey.