Staffordshire

A self-portrait by the hitherto little-known Modern British artist Michael Gilbery (1913-2000) sold for a record £10,700 at auction in Lichfield last week.

Bosleys has launched a new format for its auctions, including a move from Marlow to Staffordshire.

The best-seller lists these days will always include a good number of explosive memoirs written by special forces veterans and their heroic stories usually also mean high interest at auction.

It was scenes of pleasure boats at Lytham St Anne’s on the Lancashire coast like the one shown below that Lowry’s mother supposedly favoured over her son’s darker industrial scenes.

As announced in ATG No 2428, Continuity Fairs has taken over the Bingley Hall Antiques Fair, which had been held by IACF at the Staffordshire County Showground from mid-2018 to December 2019.

Bingley Hall Antiques Fair at the Staffordshire County Showground will be managed by Continuity Fairs which has taken over the running of it from IACF.

This 19th century half-length portrait right depicts the Anglo-Irish soldier and politician William Carr Beresford (1768-1854) who fought alongside The Duke of Wellington.

Pocket guide to pleasure stimulates in Staffs and saucy memoir excites bidders in Yorks.

The typical Georgian silver coffee pot is one of the great bargains of 21st century antiques collecting.

The Design sale at Christie’s New York (25/20% buyer’s premium) on December 13 included the return to the auction room of one of the famous series of electroplated teapots made by James Dixon & Sons, Sheffield, c.1879, to designs by Christopher Dresser.

As implied by a plaque to the base titled 'Aeroplane Par Omertz' [sic], this gilt bronze and ivory figure of a boy in an aeroplane was by Georges Omerth (fl.1895-1925).

Dominating a grand lecture hall of one of France’s oldest universities is a classical fresco of the god Apollo and the Muses on Parnasses, created at the turn of the 20th century by French artist Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret (1852-1929).

Stately homes make for enticing backdrops to antiques fairs and the Grade II-Listed Himley Hall, near Dudley in Staffordshire, is no exception.

A collection of 18th and 19th century mementoes of love and death – “the likes of which we are unlikely to ever see again” according to specialist Eric Knowles – brought a white-glove success at Hansons (20% buyer’s premium).

Two early handmade Valentines from the Judith Howard collection of mourning jewellery, greeting cards andand other ephemera drew demand at Hansons latest sale at Bishton Hall, Staffordshire.

Roy Oxlade (1929- 2014) emerged in the 1950s as one of a distinguished group of painters, including Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff, who studied under David Bomberg at Borough Polytechnic in London.

Hansons plans to hold auctions at all three of its venues after its purchase of the freehold of Bishton Hall in Staffordshire.

Disbound, but complete and still in the original covers, an 1830 first of William North’s Correct Account of all the Cricket Matches Played by the Nottingham Old Cricket Club from 1771 to 1829 came into bat in a recent Staffordshire sale with an estimate of just £50-100, but went on to score £6400 online via thesaleroom.com.

After more than 50 years as a designer for international stamps and banknotes printer Waterlow & Sons, Leonard Douglas Fryer (1891-1965) retired to enjoyable obscurity at his home in Ilford.