South-west England

An unusual but welcome inclusion to the latest silver and vertu sale at Lawrences of Crewkerne was a medieval walrus ivory tableman or backgammon piece.

It was during the Carter, Stabler and Adams period in the 1920s-30s that some of the most memorable Poole wares were produced. Much of this Art Deco range – red earthenwares covered in a white slip and a semi-matt-glaze before decoration in a variety of Jazz Age patterns – was based on the work of chief designer Truda Carter.

The New Year’s Day sale at Clarks in Liskeard included a collection of walking canes collected by the late actor Edward Woodward.

The limited, but international, appeal of a remarkable collection of about 350 Victorian hand-painted glass eyes was clear at East Bristol Auctions (18% buyer’s premium).

The New Year sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury included one of the most desirable and celebrated of all Victorian furniture types: a mahogany ‘Jupe’s patent’ radially expanding dining table.

Edwardian silver table bells modelled as tortoises are not too hard to find but silver pigs are a much rarer beast. Accordingly, it was surprising to see two appear on two successive days at winter sales.

Pin cushions have their own niche market in the novelty silver field. Nineteen Edwardian examples were offered at a sale at Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury last year.

Alongside pieces made in Kinsale, Galway and Waterford, silver from the small County Cork town of Youghal is among the scarcest of all Irish provincial silver. Only a handful of pieces survive that carry the punning town mark of a yawl.

Varied selection of Down Under images joins British art on offer in Salisbury saleroom.

A bid of £5000 from a Contemporary art gallery in London secured this post-war portrait by the writer and Vorticist painter Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957).

Several 19th and 20th century sporting paintings from named estates provided a healthy boost at two regional salerooms.

Michael Faraday’s laboratory notebook from 1851 includes a series of diagrams illustrating what he called ‘magnetic lines of force’ – the magnetic field lines that are central to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry.

The Chinese carved wooden statue pictured below is one of the offerings at the January Cotswolds Decorative Antiques & Art Fair, where the selection of Asian art is set to be wide and varied.

Items from the estate of the Dame Elisabeth Frink (1930-93) were included in the Charterhouse (25% buyer’s premium) sale in Sherborne, Dorset, on November 14-15.

Jeremy Lamond, former director of Halls, will be joining auction house Woolley & Wallis at the end of March 2020 as head of the valuations department and associate director.

A collection of vintage travel posters included a number with the added advantage of local appeal when offered by Penzance auction house David Lay (18% buyer’s premium).

Focus on two shops launched in a former bank in Wiltshire and restaurant in Cumbria

In a large collection of fountain pens offered at Cornish auction house Barbara Kirk (15% buyer’s premium) most well-known makers were represented, but among the rarer ones were no fewer than 19 by the Italian manufacturer Omas.

A spate of early to mid-20th century portraits of society figures and important personalities generated stiff competition at UK sales in London and the regions.