Salisbury

Woolley & Wallis (27% buyer’s premium) considered the Elizabethan bed offered on October 1 to be to ‘by far the most original to be offered at auction in recent years’.

So-called no’oanga stools from Rurutu Island, the northernmost island of the Austral archipelago in Polynesia, are distinct in their deep seats and solid curving legs terminating in button-like feet.

A strong selection of European pictures gave a boost to the latest specialist picture sale held at Salisbury saleroom Woolley & Wallis’ (27/26% buyer’s premium).

Altar-like form of an item usually attributed to one of two Southwark makers reflects the reverence that the commodity once held

Walter Child (1840-1930) and Harold Child (1848-1915), the sons of an East End pawnbroker who left a fortune of £30,000, opened as art jewellers in 1880 at 1 Seville Street, Belgravia.

Antique and vintage jewellery remains a strong suit across a broad range of styles, periods and values.

This stoneware pond by Robert Wallace Martin, measuring 6ft 6in (2m) across, comprises 40 architectural elements, each incised with fish and aquatic creatures among water weeds.

A rarity at a recent Woolley & Wallis (26% buyer’s premium) ceramics and glass sale was a late 18th century Wedgwood basalt intaglio seal, featuring a profile portrait of the notorious American spy Captain Nathan Hale (1755-76) beside the reversed inscription 'My Country!!!'.

Local landscapes by brother of the prominent Modern British artist Paul are now witnessing growing demand

The auction history of this highly decorative cased pair of Spanish 22 bore convertible ‘Madrid’ lock pistols goes all the way back to 1843 - with a royal connection.

In 1962, Lord John Hope, the Minister of Works in the Macmillan government commissioned David Mellor (1930-2009) to ‘supply silver you have designed to every British embassy in the world’.

The popular dealer amassed an impressive array of items assayed in the city

The many models of anthropomorphic primates that proliferated British decorative arts in the 1860s typically reference Charles Darwin’s provocative and often lampooned 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection', first published in 1859.