Salisbury

After almost 50 years on public display in the silver galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, a James I silver shell-form spice or sugar box was offered for sale at Salisbury saleroom Woolley & Wallis.

A pair of rare George II rosewood candlestands c.1745-60 has been reunited by Fairfax House in York after one of them was spotted at a Woolley & Wallis auction at the start of the year.

The ceramics sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on April 30 includes two maiolica apothecary jars and covers from the celebrated Fortuna series – an ambitious suite of pharmacy jars and jugs made in the third quarter of the 16th century.

A month before the emergence of three Compass factory figures in Lewes, the eighth and ninth recorded pieces by America’s earliest-known porcelain maker were offered for sale in Salisbury.

Familiar striking shapes and bright colours retain a strong following despite a fall in demand from the 1980s-90s heyday.

A selection of five pieces of Clarice Cliff offered at different price levels at Woolley & Wallis on March 20 .

Among the more eagerly contested entries to the Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) sale on January 24 was a late 19th century replica of the Alfred Jewel: the great example of Anglo-Saxon goldsmithing found in Somerset in 1693 and today one of the most popular exhibits at the Ashmolean Museum.

The Thomas Del Mar (24% buyer’s premium) sale in London on December 5 included several excellent pairs of English pistols.

Historically the first major sale of the year, the January ‘furniture’ auction at Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) turns eyes towards Salisbury for evidence of what the next 12 months will bring.

The British Art Pottery sales at Woolley & Wallis have posted some remarkable sums for single William De Morgan tiles.

The drive by, among others, the Royal Academy and the National Gallery to promote women’s importance in art would have required little effort had campaigners looked at the world of modern ceramics.

A previously unrecorded teabowl and saucer attributed to a pioneering American porcelain factory is expected to bring a six-figure sum when offered for sale in Salisbury next month.

Believed to be unique, this grimacing stoneware dog jar and lid from the Martin Brothers pottery is up for auction at Salisbury saleroom Woolley & Wallis on December 12.

Despite its size and various eras of occupation, Malta sustained a vibrant silver and gold-working tradition across several centuries.

Sally Knott has been running the biannual two-day Dorset Brocante for three years at two venues: in August at Deans Court, Wimborne, and in the autumn at Larmer Tree Gardens, near Salisbury.

Woolley & Wallis celebrated its 10th £1m-plus lot last week, selling a portrait by Chinese contemporary artist Yang Fei Yun (b.1954) for £1.7m (plus premium). The sitter – the artist’s wife pictured in the early days of their marriage – was in Salisbury to watch the sale.

A popular form of gift or memento to loved ones as troops left for the front was a ‘sweetheart brooch’.

The Hundred Days Offensive broke the back of German resistance in 1918 and by November the Allies were surging well beyond the once static Western Front.