South-east England

MEDIA interest in the Pietro Psaier controversy saw members of the national press in attendance at John Nicholson’s Fernhurst rooms on September 24 for the sale of 235 artworks.

AROUND 200 valuable pieces of jewellery, silver, porcelain and furniture were stolen after thieves broke into an Oxfordshire manor house, using sledgehammers to break through two walls.

MORE than £80,000 worth of jewellery was stolen from the Ardingly Showground on Wednesday, September 3.

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

Dreweatts are to begin holding sales again in Godalming, Surrey. The former Hamptons salerooms, acquired by The Fine Art Auction Group in 2005, have operated only as an origination and valuation office since January 2007 but will return to action on October 28 with a catalogue of silver and jewellery.

HENLEY Antiques Centre may close at the end of September if the Grade II Listed building in Reading Road is sold to Henley-based property developer Nicolas Piasecki for a sum thought to be in the region of £1m.

West Sussex auctioneers Worthing Auction Galleries and Scarborough Fine Art are no longer to merge.

THE extraordinary spat that has emerged over the existence of artist Pietro Psaier has taken another turn, with auctioneer John Nicholson pledging to publish the catalogue raisonée of his life and work.

A previously unheard tape of a Beatles recording session, in which John Lennon and Paul McCartney break into giggles and crack jokes, has fetched £10,000 at Cameo auctioneers in Midgham, Berkshire.

Isle of Wight firm Island Auction Rooms established a new record for a clock sold by a UK provincial auctioneer when this remarkable longcase took £240,000 on August 7.

This Carrs of Carlisle biscuit tin looks like pretty much any other Christmas biscuit tin from 1941 – except that it happens to be unopened.

A REAL rarity was offered by Sussex saleroom Tooveys of Washington on July 15 when this toll pass from 1744 came up for sale. Beautifully preserved in the original shagreen slipcase, this pass would seem to apply particularly to roads that fell within royal estates or administration rather than to a wider system of turnpike and toll roads.

Woking, Surrey auctioneers Barbers are to sell musical instruments belonging to the late Nat Temple (1913-2008) on August 4.

Is this the finest clock to be sold in England this year? The Isle of Wight auctioneers who will offer it for sale next month believe it is. It will be offered for sale by Island Auction Rooms (formerly Shanklin Auction Rooms) at their annual antiques sale timed to coincide with the influx of boating enthusiasts for Cowes Week on August 7.

THIS pottery figure of a cat is among the rarest of the Cubist-style felines designed by Louis Wain for the Austrian manufacturer Amphora.

A Kent dealer has received a two-year suspended sentence following a three-year international operation into ivory and whale-tooth smuggling. The case is the latest under Operation Charm, an ongoing campaign against the illegal trade in endangered species in London.

Morton and Eden have sold 41 Celtic gold coins found by a metal detectorist in Kent for £35,500. The coins, some of which are shown here, were found over a three-year period between 2003 and 2006, scattered over a ploughed field near Westerham in Kent, the precise location of which is being kept secret.

APPRENTICE Andy Cunningham will be among those displaying their skills at the Open Weekend being held at the Edward Barnsley Workshop near Petersfield from June 21-22.

Talbot Walk Antique Centre of Ripley, Surrey is to relocate to Dorking where it will take over the building currently trading as Great Grooms Antique Centre at 51-52 West Street.

SOMEWHERE on a shelf in a pub in the Midlands there may be five rare books that could throw a whole new light on the Brontë family.