South-east England

One of the more unusual corkscrews to come onto what is a fiercely competitive collectors’ market recently was a brass, steel and wooden contraption of the type one may have seen clamped to the bar of fin-de-siècle brasseries.

Jane Alexander of Dovehouse Fine Antiques Fairs reports that 2018 was another busy year for her fairs at the Dorking Halls, particularly as she has managed to organise a second room at this Surrey venue.

This unfinished oil sketch of a tree was kept by pre-Raphaelite painter John William Waterhouse (1849-1917) until his death and sold in his last major studio sale, held in 1926 at Christie’s.

Posters covering band or artist appearances during the embryonic days of their development are proving very popular at auction – a trend underlined by a group of 1966 Pink Floyd designs.

An antiques dealer for nearly 40 years and the long-time owner of Below Stairs in Hungerford, Stewart Hofgartner, pictured below, is a colourful character.

A table designed by a teenaged Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-52) for Windsor Castle sold for £23,500 (plus 21% buyer’s premium) at Gorringe’s of Lewes on December 4.

The bronze pieces produced by Rene Lalique are perhaps less well-known than the master’s jewellery and glass but seldom so under-rated that they are consigned to the dustbin, as was the case with this c.1910 hand mirror, below.

On the market for the first time in at least 60 years, and in some cases for more than a century, a small collection of 17th and 18th century silver accounted for a fraction of the lots but 20% of the total at the two-day winter sale at Canterbury Auction Galleries (24% buyer’s premium).

This very rare bear shown below made a very high price for such a small fellow – just 14cm (5½in) high.

Originally given as presents to infants, early dolls, rocking horses and even board games can now inspire passions among collectors far surpassing the delight of children on Christmas morning and far exceeding most doting parents’ budgets.

A new destination for antiques shopping in Arundel has opened at Merchants Hall.

Among the most coveted of all the standard Chinese export porcelain designs is the so-called ‘Rockefeller’ pattern or Palace ware.