South-west England

On October 12 Gloucestershire saleroom Dominic Winter is offering a first English edition of Picasso: Toreros by Jaime Sabartés, London & Monte Carlo: Anton Zwemmer & André Sauret, 1961, estimated at £1000-1500.

Artist’s huge and intrictately detailed watercolours depict famous capital landmarks

In exceptionally fine condition and probably never worn, a c.1730-40 embroidered silk skirt offered at Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) also had a back story adding to its attraction.

Scenes of rural life in the Outback are the most common subject of the prolific and highly inventive Australian painter Kevin ‘Pro’ Hart (1928-2006).

The Cotswold Auction Company (22% buyer’s premium) offered this version of the well-known Pilkington’s Lancastrian St George and the Dragon charger in Cheltenham.

Estimated at £3000-4000, this 9½ x 12in (24 x 30.5cm) albumen print by Julia Margaret Cameron of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is offered in the Books, Maps, Manuscripts & Photography auction on September 15 at Lawrences of Crewkerne.

A lot offering Action Man outfits and accessories from the flock hair period c.1970 sold for 100 times the low estimate at a Devon saleroom thanks to a considerable rarity it contained.

This textbook Edwardian Arts & Crafts planished silver chalice by Omar Ramsden and fellow Sheffield-born designer Alwyn Carr, pictured below, is of extra interest for its inscription.

Among the lots catching bidders’ eyes in the last few months were a number of intriguing portraits that came up at sales in south-west England.

The most desirable pieces of Lowestoft porcelain are typically the documentary pieces decorated with East Anglian scenes.

This Worcester teapot, offered for sale at Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) in Crewkerne, dates from the first decade of factory production: c.1755-57.

A small portrait of a woman that was pitched at £100-150 drew a bidding battle that carried it over 10 times estimate.

The Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas sale at Woolley & Wallis on September 21 includes 270 lots from the collection of tribal and pre-Columbian art assembled by Romy Rey of Richmond, Surrey.

Organised by Tricorn Fairs, the biannual Bristol Fine Antique Arms Fair returns on Sunday, September 11, at a new venue: the Aztec West Hotel and Spa.

The Woolley & Wallis sale in Salisbury on September 21 titled Arts of Africa, Oceania and he Americas includes a small section of antiquities.

A collection of portraits from a descendant of the Hicks Beach family of Witcombe Park will be offered at Chorley’s on September 21-22.

Famille rose vases decorated with ‘Hundred Boys’ scenes are among the most commercial of all Qing ceramics.

A portrait of a young man once thought to be a self-portrait by the Milanese artist Andrea Solario (1460-1524) attracted keen enquiries ahead of sale.

Although, thanks in part to Bram Stoker’s Dracula (first published in 1897), bats have acquired a reputation as ‘creatures of the night’ in many cultures they are viewed as symbols of luck or reincarnation.

In the years 1881-82, the Rev William Essery was for many months a passenger on the SS Ceylon.