Furniture

A pair of Chinese carved officials’ chairs offered at Ramsay Cornish (20% buyer’s premium) in Edinburgh were typical of the furniture made at the end of the Qing period, some of it for local use, much of it for export.

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

From relatively modest beginnings, specialist design sales have become mainstream money-spinners at provincial auctions.

Arts & Crafts enthusiasts who hoped to buy a pair of Voysey chairs at something close to their £20-40 estimate at an auction in the Cotswolds were to be disappointed.

This set of table and chairs by the ever-popular Mouseman had been bought from the Kilburn workshops in the 1970s by the vendor’s parents.

This English miniature terrestrial pocket globe complete with a shagreen case, its interior lined with a celestial map, will feature in the spring sale at CRN Auctions in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on March 15.

Cottone’s latest auction, in Geneseo, New York, on March 28, includes around 60 items from the collection of Dr Ronald and Krista Reed of Reed Eye Associates, of Rochester.

Frankly catalogued as in need of restoration and ‘sold as seen’, a late-17th century walnut and marquetry chest had the inherent quality to attract phone and internet bidders from across the UK to the Carlisle rooms of Thomson Roddick (17.5% buyer’s premium).

MADAM – Re: Hornby Castle Chair in the Bonhams Oak Interior sale (ATG No 2431). I have just returned from holiday to see ‘my’ old armchair staring out at me from the ATG front page. I thought you might be interested in a bit of its missing history.

The near dominance of Scandinavians among mid-20th century designers of wood furniture and artefacts was underlined at two sales at Chiswick Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) in February.

Alison Davis and Alan Old of So Last Century Vintage and Retro Fairs run their London events in suitably historic and interesting buildings.

“A fabulous example of how an auctioneer can sell these collections so successfully outside of London,” said Dreweatts’ (25% buyer’s premium) managing director Jonathan Pratt in the wake of Donnington Priory’s latest auction of European furniture and works of art.

This 14in (25cm) diameter bronze bell shown here bears the insignia of the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (the Dutch East India Company or VOC), the date 1747 and the name Jaffanapatnam. It is suspended in a wrought iron frame and mounted to a large stone mill wheel.

David Lay’s (18% buyer's premium) second stand-alone Asian art sale held in Penzance was topped at £65,500 (estimate £3000-5000) by this shodana made in Meiji period Japan, c.1890.

The so-called Hornby Castle Chair, a 4ft 7in (1.38m) high oak open armchair c.1580-1600, sold for £35,000 plus premium at the latest Oak Interior sale at Bonhams in Oxford.

The Gentleman’s Library Sale at Bonhams on February 12-13 included a miniature William and Mary or Queen Anne walnut armchair standing 21in (53cm) high).

The Oak Interior sale at Bonhams in Oxford on February 19 included two substantial private collections consigned for sale from the US.

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