Dominic Winter

Sketches at the Time of the Commencement of British Intercourse with Japan, an album containing 76 watercolours and drawings and 126 wood engravings from the last days of the Edo period, sold for £16,000 at Dominic Winter (22% buyer’s premium).

A notable collection of textiles from English aristocrat and society hostess Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873-1938) attracted considerable interest at Dominic Winter (22% buyer’s premium) in Cirencester.

The recipient of this George III period shamshir was once described by military historian Sir John Fortescue as “the bravest man to ever wear a red coat”.

A remarkably well-preserved blue sprang sash, dated c.1620, was the stand-out lot in a sale of textiles and antiques at Cirencester auction house Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium).

Published in 1598, John Florio’s 'A Worlde of Wordes, or most Copious, and Exact Dictionary in Italian and English' is considered the first comprehensive Italian-English dictionary.

In November, Spink of London will offer a Spitfire pilot’s Battle of Britain group of eight awarded to Warrant Officer (later Squadron Leader) Ernest Mayne, No 74 (Tiger) Squadron, RAF.

Prices are on the rise for Yorkshire-born painter Anne Brooke (1916-2002).

Mary Tudor’s personal copy of Vergil’s history of England comes to auction in Gloucestershire this month.

The first section of the Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) Historic Textiles & Antiques auction on July 26 contained 33 lots of textiles from the collection of the Quaker antiquary Martha Spriggs and her descendants.

Stephen Switzer (1682-1745), gardener, author, landscape designer and seedsman, was apprenticed in 1699 to George London, the senior partner of Brompton Park Nurseries.

The well-known miniature portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh by Nicholas Hilliard (c.1547-1619) in the National Portrait Gallery was painted c.1585, the year after Raleigh was knighted.

A pair of 19th century Parisian novelty silhouette hand screens, made by François Simon Alphonse Giroux, doubled their estimate at auction.