Sworders

Diaries, journals and letters kept by Lady Anne Cullum (1807-95) of Hardwick House, near Bury St Edmunds, sold for a total of around £8000 in a recent East Anglian auction.

Auction includes collection of Modernist works breaking away from south Asian tradition

Proceeds of painting by artist-plantsman Cedric Morris will benefit Benton End – the house where it was painted and home of the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing

This Italian marble bust of an emperor, catalogued as 17th century after the antique, provided a moment of saleroom drama at Sworders’ Fine Interiors auction in Stansted on September 10.

Purchased for £1 from a Hertfordshire charity shop earlier this year, a Qianlong famille rose wall vase will carry an estimate of over £50,000 at Sworders in the autumn.

An archive relating to a once famous Suffolk dynasty comes for sale at Sworders in Stansted Mountfitchet on September 10-11. The diaries, journals and letters of Lady Ann Cullum (1807-75) of Hardwick House near Bury St Edmunds form part of a Fine Interiors sale.

Private buying dominated as Essex saleroom Sworders (23% buyer’s premium) offered the selected contents of a Cotswold manor house.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales at £750 or under, including an oil by designer known more for Arts & Crafts jewellery and furniture.

The Flemish post-Impressionist Emile Claus (1849-1924) embraced the prevailing taste for plein-air painting when he moved to the village of Astene by the river Lys in 1883.

Pieces from the late 19th century, a vibrant but occasionally derided moment in the history of the decorative arts, provided many of the highlights to Sworders’ summer Fine Interiors sale in Stansted Montfitchet.

Unusually for an Asian art sale, the top price at Sworders' latest offering in in Stansted Mountfitchet was paid for a Japanese work of art.

This Chinese export charger, measuring 15in (40cm), is one of two from the service made for Captain Matthew Martin, captain of the 32-gun East Indiaman Marlborough.