South-west England

Works in demand at auction do not always reflect the subjects and themes that artists are best known for

Would you rather a blue or a bronze BAFTA? Even if you haven’t made a stand-out screen performance this year – and even if you didn’t know a blue BAFTA was an option – they could still be yours.

Specialist dealer sells items from his collection in two-day auction as he heads towards semi-retirement

Discovered as a ‘box of bits’ in the late 1960s when clearing the attic of a London residence, a ‘First Period’ lantern clock was placed in storage until being put back together in the 1980s.

Elements of a well-documented Empire period Sèvres dinner and dessert service surfaced at Kinghams (26% buyer’s premium) in Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, on March 4.

A diminutive but rare mid-17th century needlework picture sold for £11,000 in Tennants’ (24% buyer’s premium) latest Fashion, Costume and Textiles Sale.

This “incredibly rare elaborate, fantastical and exquisitely carved” oak draw-leaf table, dating from the Golden Age of the English Renaissance, stood out at the Paul Fitzsimmons – A Life in Oak sale.

Ahead of a major two-day postcard collector festival, a dealer explains the draw of the most popular types

Japanned Jennens & Bettridge creation gains value as rare survivor in such good condition

The New Orphan Houses in the Ashley Down district in the north of Bristol were once the largest orphanages in the UK.

Across the Georgian period a number of diminutive ‘bachelor’s’ teapots were produced that were probably intended for brewing saffron.

The latest sale of Cornish Art, Fine Art & Studio Pottery at Lay’s (21% buyer’s premium) in Penzance featured 85 lots from the personal art collection of Michael Hunt.

A group of seven works that were once part of the collection of noted connoisseur and scholar Kerrison Preston (1884-1974) came to a recent auction held by Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) in Dorset.

A decade ago V&A curators used an X-ray to discover what was inside a vintage Christmas cracker made in the 1920s by the Tom Smith company without having to actually pull it. This revealed a small chocolate.

Inventive pieces that can be broken down into modular elements – transformable jewels – began with the French parure in the court of Louis XIV.

A first edition of Agatha Christie’s Five Little Pigs published by The Crime Club (Collins), London 1942, was consigned to Wessex Auction Rooms (24% buyer’s premium) by the family of Phyllis Rice, housekeeper to the author at Greenway House.