Furniture

One of the best places to find furniture from across the ages this autumn was the 'Winter Art & Antiques Fair Olympia'.

Dining at Ann and Gordon Getty’s sumptuous Californian residence can seldom have been dull.

Regency period furniture provided some of the highest prices in the sale of English and Continental furniture and decorative arts held by Doyle (26/21/15% buyer’s premium) on October 19 in New York.

Hindman’s (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) furniture and decorative arts sale in Chicago on October 18 was headlined by furnishings from the estate of Michael L Wilkie, a prominent Chicago businessman.

Andrew Jones (25/18/12% buyer’s premium) held one of its periodic wide-ranging, mixed-discipline sales titled Design for the Home and Garden in Los Angeles on October 9.

Two ancient country manors refurbished by two of the 20th century’s leading UK interior designers brought what the auctioneers described as ‘pre-Covid atmospheres’ at Dreweatts’ (25% buyer’s premium) Donnington Priory rooms.

Carved giltwood mirrors were in strong demand at Dreweatts, four of them among the five-figure prices.

The unashamed opulence of interior decoration that became known as Le Goût Rothschild as it spread from 19th century France to Austria, Germany and Britain is a style that has always been admired.

Specialist event focuses on a popular period when ‘some truly original ideas’ developed

In the early 1930s, following the closure of its ironstone mines, unemployment in the east Cleveland region of North Yorkshire reached a harrowing 90%.

A George III mahogany china cabinet became one of the most expensive pieces of English furniture ever sold when it took $2.2m (£2m) during the opening salvos of Christie’s New York sale of the Ann and Gordon Getty collection.

Glasgow School designer’s embroidered silk design instantly stood out in a box of fabric.

One boasted an illustrious ‘Fonthill heirloom’ provenance, the other a Hotung collection background

Icons of English furniture returned to the market when Sotheby’s Paris sold the contents from the Hôtel Lambert, a 17th century Parisian hôtel particulier on the Ile de La Cité.

Five years after he acceded to the throne in 1873, King Albert of Saxony decided to renovate the 17th century hunting castle at Wermsdorf.

Two classic country house ‘garden’ form 17th century examples show their mettle

While traditional antique furniture prices are still relatively cheap, contemporary and mid-20th century material continues to be an expanding market.