Nottingham

Times change. While tobacco has now assumed a Social Evil status up there with North Korea, not so long ago children would be proudly displayed in an advert clutching a bunch of fags with the words ‘Mummy’s favourite’ underneath.

The Church of England has purchased the former home of Neales auction house in Nottingham.

A rediscovered Augustus John (1878-1961) pencil drawing of his friend Jacob Epstein sold for £80,000 at Mellors & Kirk in Nottingham.

Nottingham-based John Pye Auctions are expanding into Mayfair.

Mellors and Kirk of Nottingham included a watercolour by Walter Langley (1852-1922) in their fine art sale on September 20-21.

WHILE London auctions saw a 25% rise in value for 2011, sales outside the capital have also been growing.

THIS pair of Irish George III mahogany and brass-bound peat buckets drew multiple bidders at Mellors & Kirk's two-day auction in Nottingham on April 30-May 1.

Following a review of their premises, Dreweatts, the UK’s largest regional auctioneer, are to close their Nottingham saleroom.

A rare set of three graduated Plymouth baluster-shaped hard paste porcelain mugs, c.1768-70, were offered at Mellors & Kirk of Nottingham last month.

Consigned by a local private source, this late Louis XIV contre partie boulle commode c.1710 sold for £155,000 at Dreweatts in Nottingham on July 10.

Photo from 1866 rescued from the attic sells in Nottingham...

Dreweatt Neate Neales in Nottingham will hold the first of a series of sales for Oxfam on April 19. Recent visitors to the charity’s website or one of its network of 750 high street shops may have noticed the launch of ‘Valued at Oxfam’.

Auctions to centre on Nottingham, Bristol and Newbury as others become offices

THE TILES and Architectural Ceramics Society (TACS) is holding its annual antique tile fair at St Jude’s Church Hall, Mapperley, Nottingham on Saturday September 30.

As celebrations abound for the most famous of all seamen, another great British admiral was being remembered in spectacular fashion at the Nottingham auction rooms of Mellors & Kirk on June 16. The subject of a fierce engagement between collectors was the so-called Rodney Jug.

On a day when some unusual offerings caught the eye at the Nottingham sale held by Mellors & Kirk, one such lot was a set of 36 Anglo-Indian Company School Delhi or Agra oval miniatures dating to 1827 and depicting India’s nobility and their wives, six of whom are shown right.