Auctioneers

More refined items are available in Chorley’s Cotswolds Country House sale in Prinknash Abbey on November 19-20 but few will attract more attention than this rare survivor from the early 1940s: a roll of loo paper featuring satirical cartoons of characters from Nazi Germany.

The year after Cedric Morris painted his verdant Foxgloves in 1932, a severe drought cut through much of southern Britain. The parched soil and the hardship it brought were a source of artistic inspiration for those who painted the form and the character of the rural landscape.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales including a Stanley Spencer sketch.

The Lyon & Turnbull Modern Made sale in London on November 14 includes an archive of material relating to Porthia Prints, the company established by St Ives artist Denis Mitchell and his brother in the 1950s.

‘Dream’ Martinware cache from family of factory patron surfaces for sale in Berkshire

Golf books do not bring as many really high prices as was once the case, but the most recent of the regular sales in this category held by a Californian saleroom did contain a couple of surprises.

A 1940s view of Swansea described as ‘historically important’ by the auction house which sold it featured among some good results for 20th century Welsh art in the regions.

Two books from Herman Melville’s library, both volumes of classical poetry that were annotated throughout and in one instance signed, topped a recent New York sale.

A 1547 translation into Arabic of Euclid’s Elementa Geometrica sold for £17,000 as part of an October 23 sale of Islamic and Near Eastern works on paper at Bloomsbury Auctions (25/12% buyer’s premium) on October 22,

This sculptural white porcelain group of Ganymede and the Eagle is a rare survivor from the St James’s factory run by Charles Gouyn in London c.1749-60.

Simple still-life of flowers showcases the Mod Brit artist’s love of colour and luminosity

Focusing on south-east Asia, a 90-lot map section in an Essex sale comprised the extraordinarily successful first portion of a collection of maps and charts assembled by Christopher Beresford-Jones.

London art dealer Philip Mould was the successful bidder for three works by Cedric Morris (1889-1982) sold in Essex last week. One set a new auction record for the artist plantsman.