Furniture

The first specialist pub memorabilia sale of the year held by Co Cavan auction house Victor Mee (19% buyer’s premium) showed no drying up of demand in a lively market niche.

While furniture and books fully justified its title, The Oxford Library Sale at Mallams (22.5% buyer’s premium) was led by a surprise star: a rather lowly regarded gesso bust of the sort that would have been a minor decoration to such a room.

The recent auction of 20th century design at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium) in Stansted Mountfitchet was underpinned by more than 60 consignments from the estate of MJ Long.

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

The latest staging of The London Antique Rug & Textile Art Fair was marked by strong sales of carpets and fewer big-ticket sales, according to organiser and exhibitor Aaron Nejad.

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.

This early 19th century portrait miniature offered for sale at Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) in Leyburn is widely believed to depict the Irish naval officer Sir Henry D’Esterre Darby (1749-1823). To the reverse is a crystal retaining a lock of hair.

Although outwardly simple objects, cedar ‘bent corner’ chests, still made today by the indigenous people of the Pacific North West, employ a number of sophisticated woodworking techniques.

With an Irish silver ‘seal salver’ gleaming at the first Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (23% buyer’s premium) sale of the year (ATG No 2427), Italy, China and Russia provided other highlights.

Falling short of ambitious hopes but leading the day at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) first sale of 2020 was a fine English Golden Age longcase clock.

Among the gems spotted in 2092 mixed lots at Stroud Auctions’ (18% buyer’s premium) year-opener on January 8, the best-seller was the final lot.

A trio of five-figure offerings got Salisbury auction house Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) off to a great start for 2020.

In 1952, India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru commissioned the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier to design and construct the north Indian city of Chandigarh.

A pair of Russian Empire chairs, 1810-15, featuring striking decorative brass inlay is offered for £25,000 by Ellis Fine Art at the Petersfield Antiques Fair.

The New Year sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury included one of the most desirable and celebrated of all Victorian furniture types: a mahogany ‘Jupe’s patent’ radially expanding dining table.

In late January, New York hosts a clutch of high-calibre dealer events coinciding with the major auctions.

Table with striking shape is one highlight of the first major London antiques fair of 2020

Putting classic English furniture firmly back in the forefront of provincial sales in the first part of December was this Chippendale-design Gainsborough library armchair offered in Winchester by Andrew Smith (21% buyer’s premium).