South-east England

Dawson’s Auctioneers & Valuers is expanding into the capital with a new valuation office in north London.

“Every auctioneer dreams of being instructed to handle a wide-ranging collection lovingly put together over decades and then packed away out of sight.“

An Arctic Medal with a provenance indicating it was awarded to a member of the doomed Franklin Expedition which vanished searching for the elusive Northwest Passage has surfaced at a Surrey auction house.

A small painting by Scottish artist Robert Gemmell Hutchison (1855- 1936) took a mid-estimate £6000 at Surrey saleroom John Nicholson’s (24% buyer’s premium).

An 1894 pencil drawing of a street in Antwerp by Walter Frederick Osborne (1859-1903) was among the last contents offered at auction from West Horsley Place, the Grade I-listed mansion in Surrey owned by historian and broadcaster Bamber Gascoigne.

MADAM – You may call me a pedant but in Brighton there is no such place as the North Lanes.

As well as being an actor, playing Alfie Moon, the landlord of the Queen Vic pub in the soap EastEnders, Shane Richie is a singer and last year recorded a country music album.

Rising rents and business rates in central London have forced Rountree Tryon Galleries to downsize.

He was among the most prolific and longest serving official war artists of the Second World War, yet Anthony Gross (1905-84) remains an obscure name among 20th century British talents.

Whatever chaos faces hundreds of thousands of commuters on the railways as we enter the New Year, the better-ordered world of model trains steams on to continued success.

The studio ceramics offered at the Mallams Oxford (20% buyer’s premium) Design, Modern British and Post-War Art sale were the major talking point (see ATG No 2324), but furniture by major late 19th century and early 20th century makers also made an impact.

Algernon Newton (1880-1968) is one of those British artists whose pictures went unnoticed for many years.

A restored wall mask made by and indeed featuring the famed Art Deco ceramics designer Susie Cooper is one of the intriguing pieces for sale at Style 1900’s '20th Century Decorative Arts Fair'.

The inaugural Design at Home sale, put together by Mark Hill for Dawson’s (20% buyer’s premium) in Maidenhead, included a trio of pieces by ‘hot glass’ pioneer Sam Herman (b.1936).