Furniture
Every piece of furniture has a practical purpose regardless of how simple or grand it is, even if some pieces were built more for display than function. Today, furniture remains one of the largest areas of the antiques market and items are categorised by type and period.
The term brown furniture refers to traditional pieces made from dark woods such as mahogany, while pieces made from native woods like oak and walnut are sometimes referred to as vernacular furniture.
Famous historical makers include Chippendale, Gillows, William Vile and John Cobb. More recent market trends have seen modern vintage pieces appearing in specialist design and ‘Interior’ auctions.
Exhibition shows how mahogany made its mark
03 April 2003MAHOGANY is synonymous with the finest 18th century English furniture and its supreme place in English furniture history is celebrated from April 8 to 25 with a selling exhibition, Magnificent Mahogany – Two Centuries of English Furniture, at Mayfair’s Windsor House Antiques.
Linley lights on Art Deco
26 March 2003PIMLICO-based furniture designer David Linley pays homage to Art Deco with his latest furniture launch, the Salon Collection, comprising a console table, side table, coffee table, cabinet, sofa and mirror, all currently available from Linley, 60 Pimlico Road, London SW1.
Table’s star turn lifts spirits
07 March 2003The doom and gloom experienced in many provincial rooms prior to Christmas was nowhere to be seen in these Sussex rooms, who, despite the snowy conditions, took a respectable hammer total just shy of £170,000.
Victorian library steps sell for £1,800
12 February 2003To date this year Bonhams (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) have held five sales of furniture and carpets. These weekly sales are making a return to their Knightsbridge rooms for the first time in around 20 years after a recent peripatetic period of moving from Chelsea – their long time abode – to Bayswater and briefly back to Chelsea again.
The writer’s friend
05 February 2003It’s QUESTIONABLE how much influence a piece of furniture could have upon the writer using it, but certainly when the writer in question is Graham Greene, a writer of that fame can certainly influence the fate of a piece of furniture.
Specialist choice of settee underlines selective bidding
28 January 2003“SELECTIVE” can mean “poor” when auctioneers apply the word to bidding and the downward spiral of brown furniture prices has emphasised this. But it was an accurate enough description of bidding on furniture offered among the 1200 lots at the Clifton rooms, for when there was a piece of unusual quality it sold well.
Return to the nursery with Attwell’s easel
21 January 2003The easel that was used to create some of the most celebrated nursery images of the 20th century will be going under the hammer later on this month.
‘French’ cabinet proves to be Anglo-Dutch rarity
14 January 2003One of the most unusual and interesting pieces in Sotheby’s December 11 sale of Continental furniture was the 19th century English boulle cabinet shown right set with a rare 17th century Dutch mother-of-pearl and hardstone inlaid panel depicting a Vanitas subject.
Seeking enlightenment on lamp
09 January 2003One of the more mysterious objects at Lyon and Turnbull’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) decorative arts sale in Edinburgh on November 6 was this Art Nouveau pewter table lamp. Auctioneer John Mackie could not comment on why the futuristic design, measuring 2ft (60.5cm) high and apparantly unmarked, should have eclipsed a forecast of £300-500 and reached £6500.
Louis XVI console desserte makes £2.4m
08 January 2003Continental Furniture: Christie’s offered a concentration of furnishings from Continental Europe on December 12, kicking off with a select 114-lot, separately catalogued morning session devoted entirely to French furniture, with a larger 240-odd lots drawn from across the European spectrum in the afternoon.
Reflections on a Glasgow mirror at ten times estimate
08 January 2003Unsigned Arts & Crafts metalwork has lately been getting the sort of high prices normally reserved for attributable material and this copper-mounted mirror, right, was no exception – the sleeper of Bonhams’ (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) sale of Decorative Arts at Glasgow School of Arts on November 28.
The ungnawn Beaver
06 January 2003Coming up in Galashiels... The Yorkshire Arts and Crafts cabinetmaker Robert ‘Mouseman’ Thompson hardly needs an introduction. His distinctive adzed oak furniture, each piece relief-carved with a small mouse, proved so successful that a menagerie of imitators sprang up in the 1950s and ’60s.
If you’re all sitting comfortably, I’ll begin…
18 December 2002Just where were those bears made? The familiar stands, seats and other furnishings fashioned as realistically carved bears, usually from limewood, have traditionally been attributed to the Black Forest region of West Germany but recent researches suggest that Switzerland is a more likely source.
A £260,000 quality assessment beneath two centuries of redecoration
11 December 2002The table pictured right was very much the star entry in a 230-lot sale of English and Continental furniture and works of art held at Bonhams (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) Bond Street rooms on November 26. It singled handedly accounted for a third of the entire £787,620 auction total when it made £260,000. Nothing else came near this in price, the next most expensive entry being a £19,000 Louis XV period marquetry commode.
Regency mahogany secretaire bookcase sells for £27,500
06 December 2002With the recent closure of numerous manufacturing depots belonging to a Cardiff company, the time came to dispose of items from the manager’s flat. The best of these items, all of which were sold on November 20 at the Cardiff rooms of Anthemion Auctions, was this Regency mahogany secretaire bookcase.
Wicker world
06 December 2002FOR a while now wicker furniture has been fashionable. It dates back to Ancient Egypt and from the 1870s to the 1930s was very popular indeed, moving indoors from the porch and summer house and being used extensively in cruise liners and airships.
Furniture star at jewel specialists
06 December 2002Birmingham auctioneers Fellows & Sons (15% buyer’s premium) are particularly known for their silver and jewellery sales but on October 29 it was a piece of furniture which took the top honours. A William and Mary walnut and crossbanded chest on stand had made £3400 when it was auctioned in 1998 by James & Lister Lea of Birmingham as part of the estate of the Late Mrs Joyce Cadbury of the Bourneville-based chocolate dynasty. Here it was punchily estimated at £4500-5500.
£12,500 chairs justify ‘realistic’ furniture market
28 November 2002While many provincial auctioneers berate the slowing down of the brown furniture market, Phillip Taubenheim of Gloucestershire auctioneers Wotton Auction Rooms (10% buyer’s premium) is finding it pretty healthy. “As long as we are realistic with our vendors and they are realistic with us, everything seems to be OK,” he said.
What do we do about brown furniture? NAVA ask members
28 November 2002FACING up to the decline in demand for brown furniture was the central issue taxing the National Association of Valuers and Auctioneers (NAVA) at their annual general meeting in Cardiff.
Wood yew believe it? Burr cabinet rates a £5200 bid
21 November 2002Robert Finan has been holding these specialist sales at the Ship Hotel for six years and next year intends to go quarterly. With the major UK auctioneers having shipped their tribal art departments to Continental Europe and America, the valuer’s biannual outings are just about the only chance for the serious connoisseur to root out African totems and Maori weapons from the colonial timecapsules of the British countryside.
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