Our irregular selection of oddities and curiosities from the catalogues of two of our local auction rooms. There’s enough of this that I’m not going to comment … just look at the oddities, curious juxtapositions, alternative interpretations and the (non-)logic of the descriptions. Like, why do I care, and how do you know, what the artist was wearing; why would a bird be sitting on a fish; or what sort of fruit grow on small children?

• A small oil of a riverside house signed with initials JF and dated 1983, and…
• A portrait of a young Romany woman by W Blanke, signed, wearing a red scarf and colourful bodice, oils on board, framed.
• A carton of interesting ephemera dating back to the 19th century. [That’s all it says!]
• A 9 piece Golliwog jazz band, an ivory billiard ball and a leather cased set of stirrup cups.
• A fine Victorian silver mustard pot by the Barnards, the open-work sides cast with a rural scene in Irish style with cottage, cow and windmill, plain hinged lid, London 1846, blue glass liner.
• A silver reproduction lighthouse sugar caster, a baluster cream jug, tea strainer with stand, spirit measure, and sauce ladle.
• A large porcelain figurine of a crinolined lady holding a bouquet with hunting dogs by her side.
• Twenty-one stone tribal carvings.
• A stuffed jay on a perch.
• Two white ceramic female busts on marble bases, two others of classical form, a pair of putti bearing fruit, figurines on marble bases, a porcelain figurine of an oriental lady, ceramic bird ornaments, etc.
• A Black Forest style cuckoo clock, with dancing figures.
• A carton containing two Salvation Army hats, bags, children’s books, toiletries, two porcelain dolls…
• A cottage ware biscuit barrel, two Royal Doulton lidded dishes, three chamber pots, oriental vase, fruit set, plaster-of-Paris bust of Maurice Chevalier, etc.
• A small collection of various iron nails from “Roman Legionary Fortress, Inchtuthil, Perthshire, Scotland, AD 83-87”, in glazed display case, and a boxed three piece clarinet.
• A late 19th century black slate clock with classical portico and rams’ head handles, the top mounted with a sleeping maiden.
• A helmet in Roman style with folding ear protectors, neck guard and red fanned plume.
• A large West African polished hardwood male fertility figure, accompanied by an Ashanti grain weight, a Benin snake skin and bronze pipe stem, two Ashanti bracelets, a carved bone figure and another fertility figure etc.
• A large bronze figure of a pixie holding a trumpet lily.
• A very large pair of unmounted Kudu bull spiral horns.
• A Warrant Officer’s dress uniform – Household Cavalry of the Blues and Royals, with attached aiglettes showing rank.
• John Somerville, a collection of sixteen sculpted political and royal caricature candles circa 1980, including Maggie Thatcher, Denis Healey, John Major, Charles, Diana and many others; this artist is now a well known sculptor specialising in bronze.
• A silvered bronze group of a semi-nude cherub driving a cart made from a model of a nautilus shell.
• A complete set of five Wade Nat West pigs.

One does wonder who would give any of this stuff house-room. Quite worrying, really.