Penzance

Christopher Dresser created a number of daring geometric designs for silver and silver-plated toast racks in the late 1870s and early 1880s, both for Hukin & Heath and for James Dixon & Son.

An artist’s painting of his wife turned heads at a recent David Lay (18% buyer’s premium) auction in Penzance, selling over 10 times above estimate.

Including seafaring, tin, copper, studio potteries and fishing, a Penzance sale covered just about everything from the region bar pasties.

A small flurry of recent good prices for Australian artist Herbert Ivan Babbage (1875-1916) continued at David Lay (18% buyer’s premium) in Penzance, Cornwall.

A group of some 40 letters and greetings cards sent in 1990-97 by Diana, Princess of Wales, to her good friend Roger Bramble sold for almost £70,000.

Experiments with porcelain at the Swansea factory began in 1814 with the arrival of William Billingsley and Samuel Walker from the Nantgarw China Works.

Quartet of West Country works featured in the same sale as our £105,000 cover star

The highest auction price for 12 years for Beryl Cook (1926-2008) was posted at David Lay’s recent fine art sale.

A nude study by Dame Laura Knight (1877-1970) found plenty of admirers when it appeared at the latest fine art sale held by Penzance saleroom David Lay (18% buyer’s premium).

Works by two Modern British female artists whose stars have been rising commercially over recent years topped the bill at the latest fine art sale held at David Lay (18% buyer’s premium).

Extensively interleaved with scholarly notes and running to over 700pp, a Japanese and English Dictionary compiled by JC Hepburn was a notable rarity in a Cornish summer sale.

Consignments from vendors with a close connection to famous artists are always a welcome boon for any auction.

Topaz in its natural state is a golden brown to yellow, a characteristic which means it is sometimes confused with the less valuable gemstone citrine.

David Lay’s (18% buyer's premium) second stand-alone Asian art sale held in Penzance was topped at £65,500 (estimate £3000-5000) by this shodana made in Meiji period Japan, c.1890.

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).

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.

When this portrait of a young woman was first exhibited in the early 1930s, critics remarked on its “intensity and vital quality”, “the charming head” and the “wonderful life-like expression”.

A complete set of plans showing what was once the world’s largest industrial complex and the British state’s single biggest investment has sold in Cornwall. Thomas Milton’s plans of the Royal Dockyards sold to an online buyer for £10,000 (plus 18% buyer’s premium) at David Lay's latest sale in Penzance.

Under forthcoming UK ivory legislation, there will be no legitimate market for bronze and ivory Art Deco figures.

Penzance auction house David Lay (18% buyer’s premium) is no stranger to the great Chinese boom but in July it staged Cornwall’s first dedicated Asian sale.