Essex

The primary contents of North Mymms Park in Hertfordshire – including an important collection of European tapestries – provided Sworders with its best-ever sale last week.

Artist Mel Winning runs a reclamation business in the medieval market town of Manningtree in Essex.

Essex saleroom Sworders (23% buyer’s premium) set a new auction high for Belle Epoque artist Albert de Belleroche (1864-1944).

Celebrated in the thoroughly modern way with a Google Doodle on April 3 on what would have been his 325th birthday was John Harrison.

Steve Cooper of Haddon Events is such a keen supporter of the Museum of Power at Maldon in Essex that he holds a biannual antiques and collectors’ fair at the venue.

An unexpected highlight of a recent sale at Sworders in Stansted Mountfitchet was this set of four early real tennis rackets. They came from a client in the North of England and had been owned by the family for many years.

A pair of trademark gouaches by Mary Fedden (1915-2012) drew strong bidding at auctions in Derbyshire and Essex.

A painting by the obscure Welsh artist James Dickson Innes (1887-1914) generated keen bidding at Essex saleroom Stacey’s (24% buyer’s premium) on February 26.

This late 19th century ‘natural history’ specimen purports to be the mummified body of a creature that was half mammal and half fish.

Sworders is to sell the primary contents of North Mymms Park, Hertfordshire – including a collection of European tapestries that have been at the property for over a century.

Good times ahead were predicted by Guy Schooling, chairman of Sworders (23% buyer’s premium), after the January 9 Homes & Interiors sale at Stansted Mountfitchet which was topped by a WAS Benson brass mantel clock.

The so-called ‘Great Bardfield Artists’, named after the Essex village where a community of painters and designers lived from the 1930s onwards, has become fertile ground for local auction house Sworders (22% buyer’s premium).

This 17th century Indian painting attributed to one of the best artists of the Mughal court sold for £42,000 at Sworders’ December 5 Country House Sale.