East Sussex

Home owners who have valuable antiques are being warned by police to be vigilant after three burglaries in the space of three days in the Brighton and Hove area.

A RUGBY-tackling mystery hero and a life-size pottery Great Dane helped scupper a daylight smash-and-grab raid targeting a rhino horn libation cup.

BONHAMS have taken part of the ground floor of Royal Victoria House in the Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells, as their new operational base in Kent and Sussex.

POLICE have thanked two female members of staff who tackled jewellery robbers in a raid on an East Sussex antiques shop.

THIS late 18th century Chinese export porcelain bowl drew eight bidders at Gorringes' latest sale.

GORRINGES are to offer for sale paintings and works of art belonging to Grace Higgens, the former housekeeper at Charleston Farmhouse, the Bloomsbury Group's Sussex retreat.

SUSSEX police want to speak to the man, pictured here, in connection with two thefts at Gorringes auction house in Lewes.

WHEN Aaron Dean was asked to catalogue a local collection of Modern Firsts at Gorringes' Lewes saleroom, he knew he was dealing with something special.

A SUBSTANTIAL, and previously unpublished, collection of letters written by various members of the Bloomsbury Group to Helen Anrep (1885-1965) is to be sold by the East Sussex auctioneers Gorringes in Lewes on September 3, along with a collection of artworks by members of the group consigned from the same estate.

THIS mysterious liveried Austin A40 Dinky van made for the Spanish company Omnisport sold for £6400 on the phone to a British collector at Wallis & Wallis in Lewes, East Sussex on June 8.

This large three-section glass panel was designed and made by Paul Jefferies at the Whitefriars factory in 1966.

After five years of trading in Worthing, Gorringes have closed their saleroom on 44-46 High Street. In its place, one of their senior valuers will be opening up in his own name.

THERE’S a fairs reshuffle in the medieval town of Rye in East Sussex.

On September 18 the Dreweatt Neate team decamped to Boarsney House, a 16th century property near Robertsbridge in East Sussex to sell the property of Judith Hamilton, a collector of oak and country furniture and effects for 45 years.

MUSSOLINI’s son-in-law and foreign minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano, would have done well to heed the imagery of this black glazed terracotta head when another version of it came into his possession.

On December 1 South Downs Auctioneers opened a new office and showroom at Gosdens Heath Barn, two and a half miles east of Midhurst, towards Petworth on the A272.

GORRINGES were celebrating a house record last Thursday following the sale of a rediscovered late work by John William Godward (1858-1922) for £440,000.

A WORK of art in itself, a piece of US history and redolent of the tragic past of the American Indian tribes in which so many collectors are now passionately interested. Could any artefact be more likely to guarantee a huge price than this Blackfoot war bonnet, right, dating from the early/mid 19th century but still in fine condition?

Wallis & Wallis, Lewes. November 23. Buyer’s premium: 15 per centSales of arms and militaria can, with their beautifully chased old flintlocks and exuberantly decorated uniforms, somehow skate over the fact that often what is on offer is, or was, associated with the darker side of humanity.

A 90-year-old member of the Wine Label Circle has lost 70 items from his collection during a break-in at his East Sussex home. The wine labels were the only items taken in the theft.