East of England

Russia-born Tanya Goddard is one of the 35 exhibitors at the upcoming two-year-old Art Fair East in Norwich, which runs until December 3 at St Andrews Hall.

The second of Suffolk House Antiques’ two annual exhibitions has yet to kick off officially – Christmas Selling Exhibition 2017 runs from December 2-23 and showcases an array of early furniture and works of art in the Yoxford gallery. Even so, with the catalogue up online, sales have already started.

Earlier works in an October 18 sale held by Cheffins (22.5% buyer’s premium) included a scarce 1688 first of Randle Holme’s The Academy of Armory, or a Storehouse of Armory and Blazon, an heraldic work by the third member of a distinguished Chester family of heraldic painters and genealogists to bear that name. It made £1200.

In the little market town of Eye in Suffolk, English and Continental Antiques is preparing for its final exhibition of the year (starting November 18).

In our continuing series looking through the keyhole of ‘bricks and mortar’ shops in 2017, ATG talks to Glenn Lawrence of Harp and Rose Antiques, which opened in May 2013 and specialises in early English porcelain and ceramics. It also stocks period furniture, clocks, glass, jewellery and more.

Overshadowed by the £130,000 Giacometti double-sided sketch (ATG No 2314), other pieces at Cheffins’ (23% buyer’s premium) sale at Cambridge on October 12 flourished under the banner of post-1880 design.

When the vendor consigned a 3ft 2in (97cm) tall carved figure of Nelson into the Rayleigh rooms of Stacey’s (20% buyer’s premium), he believed it to be a ship’s figurehead.

The presence of two Turkish gentlemen at the Objects of Desire sale at Sworders in Stansted Mountfitchet on October 18 had raised a few eyebrows – if only because they appeared singularly disinterested in the contents of this ‘handbags and gladrags’ sale.

Pictures, prints and taxidermic displays accounted for the larger part of the Ornithology Sale held by Keys (17.5% buyer’s premium) on September 22, but it also offered some 175 book lots, many of them multiples.

A double-sided drawing by Alberto Giacometti of his classic elongated head and figure designs has been sold at auction in Cambridge for £130,000.

Huge new auction centre ready to launch on the edge of Bedford includes five salerooms...

Keys is holding two specialist sales next year to whet the appetite. Not only does the Norfolk auction house have a shipshape selection dedicated to ‘local hero’ Nelson, but it has also secured the diploma collection of the Royal Society of Marine Artists (RSMA), Tom Derbyshire writes.

Half a dozen works by the obscure British artist Valentine Dobrée (1891-1974) sold for multi-estimate sums at Reeman Dansie (20% buyer’s premium) in Colchester on September 26-27.