UK

Three models from an English porcelain factory about which almost nothing is known surfaced for sale in East Sussex last week.

A pair of rare George II rosewood candlestands c.1745-60 has been reunited by Fairfax House in York after one of them was spotted at a Woolley & Wallis auction at the start of the year.

The exact function of carved and painted wood butcher’s shop dioramas is uncertain.

The ice pick carried by geologist Frank Debenham (1883-1965) during the doomed Terra Nova British Antarctic Expedition of 1910-13 sold for £22,000 (plus buyer’s premium) at Cheffins earlier this month. The estimate was just £200-400.

An impressive Edwardian aquamarine and diamond brooch with a provenance to the first lady to take her seat as an MP in the UK sold for £54,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) at auction this month.

MADAM – It was good to see Clarice Cliff featured in ATG No 2383. As mentioned, the pottery has had its ups and downs over the years and in any case ‘Clarice’ has always been a little ‘Marmite’.

A month before the emergence of three Compass factory figures in Lewes, the eighth and ninth recorded pieces by America’s earliest-known porcelain maker were offered for sale in Salisbury.

A massive 3ft (92cm) high majolica urn – a riot of grotesque masks, mythical figures and other motifs drawn from Renaissance sources – combining the talents of two key figures in the history of the Minton factory was included in Fonsie Mealy’s (20% buyer’s premium) sale on March 5.

A monthly brocante has launched in the pretty Kent town of Westerham, famed for nearby Chartwell, the former home of Winston Churchill.

Jeff Day was born in Weston-super-Mare in 1952 and grew up in Somerset.

Paul Treadaway, antique dealer and gilder, died on March 5 after a long illness. He will be sadly missed by his family, friends and colleagues.

Some areas of the secondary pictures market march to their own beat, appearing to defy the usual forces that determine value. Ancestral paintings are such a category.

An abstract creation by the revered Singaporean artist Cheong Soo Pieng (1917-83) took £15,500 at Derbyshire saleroom Hansons (20% buyer’s premium).

Ornithological books and artworks have played their part in the success of two recent sales and a selection of just a few of those lots begins with books from the Ladwell library.