Furniture

Underlined by a £65,000 bid for a table cabinet, the attraction of Indo-Portuguese furniture – that combines familiar European forms with the exotic lure of the East – is as strong today as it was in centuries past.

Some buyers regard sales of dealers’ stock as a minus on the grounds that the lots have been ‘seen’. Others view them as a plus, reckoning the material has already been the choice of an expert.

The wealth of material brought back to Britain from the days of the East India Company was illustrated at John Nicholson’s (24% buyer’s premium) sale when four Indo-Portuguese or Anglo-Indian tortoiseshell and ivory works were consigned by different vendors.

Never wholly out of demand since top Victorian upholsterer Howard & Sons began producing furniture from its Soho premises, these built-for-comfort sofas and armchairs continue to excel whenever offered at auction.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

This early 18th century walnut chest of drawers offered at Rowley’s (22.5% buyer’s premium) Ely rooms on February 16 had plenty going for it including small size at 2ft 8in (81cm) wide, a crossbanded top and a brushing slide.

A jumble of names scratched into a piece of oak by naughty children (or possibly adults) has been discovered on the underside of an antique table in the latest exhibition at WR Harvey in Witney.

The plethora of single-collection sales at the start of the year was not at the expense of old-fashioned auctions offering good-quality offerings across the range of dealing and collecting – such as the Winter Fine Arts sale at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) of Dorchester.

Regarded in their time as examples of the finest cabinet-making rather than simply reproductions, good 19th century French revivalist furniture remains in demand.

Precisely four months on from a flood inundating its saleroom, Carmarthen auction house Peter Francis (20% buyer’s premium) enjoyed a literal and metaphorical day in the sunshine on February 13.

Billed as a private London collection, the February 5 sale at Chiswick Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) betrayed a single owner with a good eye and wide-ranging enthusiasms.

This 2ft (60cm) high Charles II needlework looking glass worked with figures and fantastical beasts emblematic of the seasons was estimated at $10,000-15,000 but sold at $80,000 (£61,500) in the Vogel collection auction at Sotheby's New York.

A rare Georgian invalid’s ‘chair lift’ is one of the highlights at the Scone Palace Antiques & Fine Art Fair.

Lamps in south London form a stylish and popular part of the mid-century collecting field.

John Bedford of William Bedford was one of the major dealers in antique furniture in London in the 1970s and for the next 35 years dominated his corner of the trade.

The sale of two great collections at auction – one in London, the other in New York – has highlighted the ebbs and flows of the market for early British pottery and furniture.

A very different residence to Harold Ward’s Manthorpe House (see Mellors & Kirk story in Auction Reports this edition) supplied the very different contents to the 600-lot single-owner collection, white-glove sale held at Bellmans’ (22% buyer’s premium) Billingshurst saleroom on February 9.