Shropshire

An antiques dealer in the picturesque market town of Bridgnorth in Shropshire is retiring from the trade to concentrate on her writing career.

Jerrard Nares of Mytton Antiques deals in 18th and 19th century furniture and related decorative small items from his shop in Shrewsbury.

A 17th century oak panel marking the rebuilding of one of the best-known dwellings on the Chester Rows sold at auction last week for £4600.

A large canvas by the Taiwan-born British minimalist Richard Lin (1933-2011) sailed to £84,000 at Ludlow saleroom McCartneys (17% buyer’s premium), setting a house record in the process.

Organisers report that all of their events are fully booked as far ahead as October this year

Eardley Norton, who is listed at 49 St John’s Street, Clerkenwell between 1762- 94, enjoyed a reputation as a skilled mechanic and the maker of complex timepieces, sometimes with musical and astronomical movements.

Characteristic etching is best-seller in appealing single-owner mix of works on paper.

Catalogued as ‘Art Nouveau… manner of Charlotte Rhead’, this pair of tube-lined tiles went at 10 times the estimate at Trevanion & Dean’s (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale in Whitchurch.

Almost wholly reliant on slavery, the tobacco industry was the subtle target of British Abolitionists 50 years before Britain outlawed slavery and nearly a century before the American Civil War.

This oil on canvas of A June Day, Ludlow by Beryl Maud Sinclair (1901-67) is among the works featured at Miles Wynn Cato’s final exhibition devoted to views of the Shropshire market town.

Halls’ Country House & Asian Art sale in Shrewsbury on May 15 will include a 21in (54cm) Kangxi famille verte vase decorated with a panorama of Asiatic birds, butterflies and dragonflies.

An Elkington electroplated duck press outsold silver proper at Halls (20% buyer’s premium) of Shrewsbury on March 20.

A country house car boot to raise funds for a newly opened specialist equestrian centre in Much Wenlock, Shropshire, will run at the 800-acre Isle Estate at Bicton near Shrewsbury on Sunday May 12.

After abandoning his early career as a contributor to Punch and the Illustrated London News, Myles Birket Foster (1825-99) went on to establish his reputation as a painter of technically skilled and highly polished watercolours, depicting landscapes and rustic subjects from Scotland to the Mediterranean.

Whatever it may be, someone, somewhere will be avidly collecting it.

The lot that gained all the publicity in a recent Shropshire sale, even national newspaper coverage, was a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Emma and Oli Jones of JOS Events are taking over Amulet Fairs’ antiques and collectors’ fairs run at the Oswestry Showground by Sheila Jackson for 30 years.

A painting by one of Picasso’s mistresses drew considerable interest at Halls (20% buyer’s premium) of Shrewsbury on February 6.