Furniture

Last week’s on-the-premises sale at Athelhampton House in Dorset was a near sell-out with a hammer price of close to £1.2m.

Catalogued as ‘witch’ mirrors, this c.1970 pair certainly charmed bidders at Dorchester auction house Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium). The key was the signature Line Vautrin, ROI for the Parisienne designer and decorative artist Line Vautrin (1913-97).

Underlining the market move from antique furniture to 20th century craftsman design, a 1982-83 chest of drawers set a record for a work by Alan Peters at the Modern British Living sale at Mallams (22.5% buyer’s premium) in Cheltenham.

A Régence period giltwood table attracted interest from across the trade, taking £52,000 (estimate £5000- 8000) at Lots Road Auctions (22% buyer’s premium).

Our weekly selection from salerooms.

Two English furniture ‘discoveries’ excelled against modest hopes at auction in mid-September. Top-end London dealers bought both pieces.

Estimated at just £40-60, this ebonised wood and alabaster table casket sold to a bidder using thesaleroom.com for £1600 at Peter Francis (20% buyer’s premium) of Carmarthen on August 28.

The centenary of the influential design school provides a theme for the final Battersea Park fair of 2019

Bonhams is to sell the Eric Steiner collection in its Los Angeles rooms on October 10, under the title The Contents of a Virginian Country House.

Early English oak and yew and ceramics from St Petersburg to Stoke-on-Trent were features of a 250-lot sale which left auctioneer Jeremy Lamond in a quietly upbeat mood after Halls’ (23% buyer’s premium) summer sale at Shrewsbury.

The Left Bank Galerie Vauclair on the rue de Beaune is one of the participants in the Parcours de la Céramique but it is also is putting on an exhibition titled Majeur! This not only spans the Parcours’ dates but runs until October 31.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

This Gallé marquetry tray is to be offered by the Horta saleroom in its next auction taking place in Brussels on September 9-10.

Dealer David Harvey of WR Harvey brings a remarkably versatile Regency games table, c.1815, to the upcoming Petersfield Antiques Fair.

Relatively few English spinets from the 17th century survive but one surfaced at a Criterion auction in Islington. Loosely catalogued and estimated at just £100-200, it made £5500 (plus premium).

Better by a distance than nine similar items, a mid-17th century wainscot chair offered by Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) in Crewkerne demonstrated the yawning price gap between the acceptable and the desirable in the early oak market.