Somerset

A rare pair of bookends by Robert ‘Mouseman’ Thompson attracted huge interest and a remarkable £10,000 winning bid at Lawrences of Crewkerne.

A Taunton antiques company has taken over a long-running local antiques business.

Two collections assembled since the late 1960s enthuse a fresh generation of buyers.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Opening the antique ceramics section of Lawrences’ (25% buyer’s premium) four-day sale in Crewkerne was the William Farrar Jackson collection of commemorative English pottery.

On account of its relative scarcity, all Irish silver carries a premium. It is the pieces made in small provincial centres that are most highly prized.

Offered as a sale within a sale, 34 silver snuff boxes and vinaigrettes came fresh to market at Lawrences’ April 9 sale after decades in a private collection.

Meeting all the criteria for Tunbridge ware collectors, this workbox on stand below was one of the top buys at Greenslade Taylor Hunt’s (19.5% buyer’s premium) sale at Taunton on April 4.

A Victorian hardstone and gold necklace and similar brooch sold for an unexpected £7500 (estimate £600-800) at Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne on April 11.

A watercolour of Lindisfarne Priory off the Northumberland coast sold for more than 12 times its guide at Taunton saleroom Greenslade Taylor Hunt (19.5% buyer’s premium).

The Court Gallery has joined forces with the Museum of Somerset to stage an exhibition of the works of Doris Hatt (1890-1969), a local pioneer of British modernism.

Vintage millinery dealer Claire Powell and textiles dealer Liz van Hasselt are business partners in the long-running Vintage Bazaars in Wiltshire and Somerset.

“There’s no money around in January” is the refrain you often hear from businesses in the new year. But, as we know, the auction world behaves differently from other commercial markets.

This Aesthetic movement X-frame armchair took £11,000 against an estimate of just £100-150 at Lawrences of Crewkerne.

Greenslade Taylor Hunt’s (19.5% buyer’s premium) first sale of the year got off to a bright start with a Singaporean painting sailing to £19,000.

Glass specialists Liz and Mike Flatter will be first-time exhibitors at the IACF Shepton Mallet antiques and collectors’ fair at the Bath and West Showground on Friday to Sunday, January 18-20.

British modernist Kenneth Lauder (1916-2004) used to entreat his opticians to create spectacles that would allow him to see the world upside down. They refused, but he remained determined to view life in a different way.

An Indian School work guided at £100-150 was the star turn at Greenslade Taylor Hunt (19.5% buyer’s premium) of Taunton in Somerset on August 2.