Furniture

A chinoiserie corner cupboard bearing the paper trade label of the Queen Anne furniture maker John Coxed has been sold by Oxfordshire dealership Alexander George Fine Antiques.

Two collections assembled since the late 1960s enthuse a fresh generation of buyers.

The furniture market continues to enjoy its occasional moments in the sun. During The Pedestal’s (25% buyer’s premium) sixth sale at Moor Park, Hertfordshire, on April 30 a George III carved mahogany octagonal tripod table (estimate £12,000-18,000) sold for £24,000.

One of the best pieces of early oak at spring provincial sales was an17th century carved oak mural livery cupboard sold at Henry Adams (20% buyer’s premium) of Chichester.

Catalogued as ‘exceptional’, this farmhouse refectory table fulfilled the auctioneer’s adjective in more than one way at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) sale in Dorchester on April 26.

It is with great sadness that I report the passing away of George Floyd – always an immaculately dressed larger-than-life character.

A highlight of Suffolk House Antiques’ summer selling exhibition is a pair of 13th or 14th century English gargoyles.

A carving of a deerhound which once adorned a 19th century yacht more than doubled the house record for a figurehead at a Charles Miller auction in west London. The item sold for £52,000 had a royal connection but it was the quality and condition which secured the high price, said Miller.

Although the antiquities market is more stringently regulated than ever before, the possibility of illicit material continues to cause concern for collectors of antiquities. This places a greater financial value on pieces with long watertight provenances.

With ‘on the premises’ country house contents sales now so rare, the more usual practice is for the better pieces to be removed to saleroom bases.

A 23in (58.5cm) diameter Art Deco table by the designer Edgar Brandt has been consigned to the two-day Design for the Home and Garden auction to be held by Andrew Jones in Los Angeles on May 18-19.

A c.1946 Italian wrought-iron dressing table was among the stand-out sales during the spring Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair in Battersea.

This cast-metal figure of a young girl with a bird on her arm, below, is offered on a composition base for £325 from English and Continental Antiques.

Copy of a letter sent to Jeremy Wright MP, secretary of state for culture, concerning the temporary export ban placed on a 350-year-old cabinet by Baroque artisan Giacomo Herman in the hope a buyer can be found to keep it in the UK (see ATG No 2388):

This highly elaborate chest of drawers decorated in boulle marquetry technique with a variety of different figural and foliate motifs featured in the furniture session of a sale at Hampel (29.5% buyer’s premium) in Munich on March 28.

The extensive spring sale at Schuler (20/18.6/16.6% buyer’s premium) in Zurich lasted from March 18-22. The results were as varied as the works of art on offer.