Somerset

A selection of good online illustrations plus a brief noncommittal description can be the regional auctioneer’s safest route when offering Chinese works of art. It proved successful when a porcelain bowl was consigned to the September 7 sale Greenslade Taylor & Hunt (19% buyer’s premium) held at Taunton.

Details on the back of a pastel drawing lead to detective work and royal portraitist connection...

Breathing quality, this 22ct gold, pocket watch, below, was by an apparently unrecorded maker but nevertheless pitched at a positive £3000-3200 at Tamlyns’ (18% buyer’s premium) sale at Bridgwater on August 30.

The launch on September 10 of a vintage market outside the 19th century Market House in the picturesque town of Castle Cary in Somerset has been postponed until next spring.

The Giant Flea and Collectors’ Market at the Royal Bath & West Showground in Shepton Mallet is almost fully booked inside with 200 stallholders.

The interest in studio pottery goes beyond the premier names in the field. Three pieces by Waistel Cooper (1921-2003), a Scot who worked first in Porlock in Somerset and later from the Barbican Pottery in Penzance, generated plenty of bidding at Greenslade Taylor Hunt’s (19% buyer’s premium) July 6 sale in Taunton.

Coming up next for Cooper Events is the second of three annual Cotswolds Decorative Fairs, which take place in the grand hall of Westonbirt School in Burnham-on-Sea.

A June 16 sale at Lawrences (22% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne included theological works from the library of Edward Tottenham (1810-53), a cleric whose parishes were in Bath and Wells.

Readers old enough to remember using one at school may also recall Sam Cooke’s 1960 song in which he lamented “don’t know what a slide rule is for”. Today, few teenagers would know what one was.

Ahead of IACF’s popular Shepton Mallet antiques and collectors’ fair from May 5-7, with up to 600 standholders, the organisers have announced that the March event showed an impressive increase in buyers’ attendance.

Lawrences of Crewkerne is co-sponsoring a major new exhibition of works by the Camden Town Group which runs at the Museum of Somerset in Taunton until July 8.

A piece of Russian porcelain and an Asian painting raised most interest at West Country auctioneers Tamlyns (18% buyer’s premium) on March 8. However, a 13in long (34cm) gouache scroll painting of magpies and prunus was considerably more of a surprise.

A record sale total, the trade in buying mood and traditional furniture selling well – all further evidence that 2017 so far is proving rather less catastrophic than some had forecast.

From different centuries and different cultures – same surprising high results for these two toys offered at Tamlyns’ (18% buyer’s premium) sale at Bridgwater on February 15.