Wales

The National Botanic Gardens of Wales spreads out into 500-plus acres at Llanarthne in the Carmarthenshire countryside and boasts a spectacular structure designed by Norman Foster: the largest single-span glasshouse in the world.

Estimated at £40-60, this unusual Chinese scholar’s object took £32,000 (plus buyer’s premium) at a recent auction at Rogers Jones in Cardiff.

Two years ago we featured ex-paramedic Allun Davies and his business selling vintage luggage in the Gwent town of Pontypool.

It has been a bullish year for Welsh art and antiques, according to auction house Rogers Jones (24% buyer’s premium), which broke the £1m barrier for the first time this year across three dedicated sales.

A pottery has stood in the Welsh village of Ewenny for five centuries but the collecting market tends to focus on those pieces produced under the influence of the Arts & Crafts movement in the late 19th century.

It was of early manufacture, looked beautiful and the condition was very good – but auctioneer Ben Rogers Jones admits to still being mystified as to why a paperweight sold for such a hefty price at his Cardiff saleroom.

An intriguing item with important international artistic links is on offer at Towy Fairs’ Carmarthen Antiques and Fleamarket on Sunday, September 9.

In his later years, Welsh painter Wilf Roberts spent time going on drives, his wife Sue at the wheel, out to the Anglesey countryside. He would set off with pencils or watercolours to sketch landscapes while she waited for him in the car, reading.

This small 7 x 91/2in (18 x 24cm) oil on panel Biblical scene by the Victorian artist William Edward Frost (1810-77), below, doubled its top guide at Peter Francis (20% buyer’s premium) of Carmarthen on July 11.

A famous royal regiment was remembered at the Peter Francis (20% buyer’s premium) auction in Carmarthen.

The Victorian fascination for natural history led to many a front parlour having as its centrepiece a cased display of butterflies.

'Peu à Peu Sortant de la Brume', a 1969 screenprint by Ceri Richards (1903-71) is part of the annual summer show at Oriel Tegfryn in Anglesey.

The paintings of Welsh landscape artist Kyffin Williams (1918-2006) are much in evidence in this, the year of his centenary, and nowhere so much as in his native land.

The designer Emma Bridgewater began experimenting with what are now her signature sponge-painted ceramics in the bedroom of a former squat in Brixton.

Martin Tinney Gallery celebrates the centenary of Sir Kyffin Williams’ (1918-2006) birth with a selling exhibition of his paintings and works on paper.

A gloriously Welsh view of a jagged, grey slate quarry by JMW Turner (1775-1851) took top honours at Cardiff saleroom Rogers Jones (20% buyer’s premium).

Selling just short of the auction record, this 10in (26cm) tall stoneware pot, below, by John Ward (b.1938) went to an online bidder on thesaleroom.com at £17,500 at Rogers Jones (20% buyer’s premium) in Cardiff.