Essex

Heading Sworders’ (25% buyer’s premium) January 16 Design sale in Stansted Mountfitchet was a recently rediscovered version of one of the best-known Guild of Handicraft designs.

For Emma and Steve Cooper of Haddon Events, their calendar is a whirlwind of events in Essex, Hertfordshire and Greater London including antiques and vintage fairs, vintage fashion fairs, classic car and country shows and a community street event.

This 19th century glazed wooden case containing musket balls, ceramic fragments and three complete clay pipes was eagerly contested at auction.

Sending the old year out with a bang, a George III brass mortar by Jan Verbruggen took £49,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) at Sworders.

A recently rediscovered version of one of the best-known Guild of Handicraft designs is up for sale at Sworders.

A Chinese ‘dragon’ box fashioned in the prized Asian wood zitan sold for £110,000 at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium) on November 3.

Pictured here are the plates from a 12th or 13th century klivanion (Byzantine armour).

More items from the collection of Sir Rod Stewart are coming up for sale at Sworders this year.

A rare ceramic cat given by David Hockney (b.1937) to strangers who helped him as a student fetched a record price for one of the artist’s sculptural felines when it sold at Stacey’s in Chelmsford.

This pair of kesi chair covers woven with front-facing dragons against an apricot ground, date from the late Ming or early Qing dynasty period.

The art of the Samurai comes to Essex firm Sworders on November 2.

Dutch artist used a technique that was much admired in his homeland as well as Britain

Sworders (25% buyer’s premium) timed online sale that closed on August 13 included this rare enamel by Ernestine Evans Mills (1871-1959).

Inspired by Carlo Scarpa’s use of murrine glass in the 1930s and 1940s, Paolo Venini (1895-1959) designed a number of vessels in the 1950s that have become classics of post-war Italian design.

Among the lots on offer at Sworders’ upcoming Old Master, British and European Art sale is a small sketch of two lawyers by Honoré Daumier (1808-79).