Somerset

Offered as a sale within a sale, 34 silver snuff boxes and vinaigrettes came fresh to market at Lawrences’ April 9 sale after decades in a private collection.

On account of its relative scarcity, all Irish silver carries a premium. It is the pieces made in small provincial centres that are most highly prized.

A Victorian hardstone and gold necklace and similar brooch sold for an unexpected £7500 (estimate £600-800) at Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne on April 11.

A watercolour of Lindisfarne Priory off the Northumberland coast sold for more than 12 times its guide at Taunton saleroom Greenslade Taylor Hunt (19.5% buyer’s premium).

Meeting all the criteria for Tunbridge ware collectors, this workbox on stand below was one of the top buys at Greenslade Taylor Hunt’s (19.5% buyer’s premium) sale at Taunton on April 4.

The Court Gallery has joined forces with the Museum of Somerset to stage an exhibition of the works of Doris Hatt (1890-1969), a local pioneer of British modernism.

Vintage millinery dealer Claire Powell and textiles dealer Liz van Hasselt are business partners in the long-running Vintage Bazaars in Wiltshire and Somerset.

“There’s no money around in January” is the refrain you often hear from businesses in the new year. But, as we know, the auction world behaves differently from other commercial markets.

This Aesthetic movement X-frame armchair took £11,000 against an estimate of just £100-150 at Lawrences of Crewkerne.

Greenslade Taylor Hunt’s (19.5% buyer’s premium) first sale of the year got off to a bright start with a Singaporean painting sailing to £19,000.

Glass specialists Liz and Mike Flatter will be first-time exhibitors at the IACF Shepton Mallet antiques and collectors’ fair at the Bath and West Showground on Friday to Sunday, January 18-20.

British modernist Kenneth Lauder (1916-2004) used to entreat his opticians to create spectacles that would allow him to see the world upside down. They refused, but he remained determined to view life in a different way.

An Indian School work guided at £100-150 was the star turn at Greenslade Taylor Hunt (19.5% buyer’s premium) of Taunton in Somerset on August 2.

One of the many beauties of the Grade I-listed Crowcombe Court in the Quantock Hills of west Somerset is the Great Hall.

Eight years ago textiles dealers Liz van Hasselt and Clare Powell came up with the idea of holding a monthly vintage bazaar in the Somerset market town of Frome, which has a cluster of vintage shops on Catherine Hill.

Celebrated in the thoroughly modern way with a Google Doodle on April 3 on what would have been his 325th birthday was John Harrison.

Experimental work by the Czech Expressionist Ernest Neuschul (1895-1968) chimed with current tastes in a sell-out studio sale in Somerset.

Upholstered Victorian armchairs not being the most in-demand of auction lots at present, the £100-150 estimate of a pair offered at Greenslade Taylor Hunt (19.5% buyer’s premium) did not seem overly pessimistic.