Private bids fill the new nervous trade gap

For obvious reasons, there is a great deal of nervousness around among UK auctioneers and dealers. The latter, concerned that they might be saddled with large amounts of stock at a time when world events make the buying of art the last item on anyone’s agenda, have been conspicuously wary about bidding for what few pictures have been coming up for auction in the UK over the last couple of weeks.

As a result, it has tended to be private buyers who have been the most successful bidders at price levels that rarely rise above estimate.
“Sale rates are OK, but prices are unremarkable,” commented James Guyer of Rowley Fine Art (15% buyer’s premium) whose September 19 sale at Tattersalls, Newmarket, was one of the few such provincial outings to include a picture section of any quality.

In the normal course of events, an oil landscape by the short-lived, but in his time highly successful, Bristol-born artist William James Muller (1812-1845) that had not been seen on the market for 40 years, would be a sure target for the trade.

However, despite being in a private collection since being bought from Agnew’s in 1960, an atmospheric, if rather large signed and dated 1845 canvas of a wood gatherer and other figures in front of a snow-covered mountainous landscape, measuring 2ft 6in by 4ft 6in (77cm x 1.38m), was bought by a London-based collector at £7300, just above the lower estimate. Although the painting was described as having no major condition problems, large size may well have been an off-putting factor here, like the ‘realistic’ estimate of £7000-10,000.

THERE could hardly be a better venue to sell a racehorse portrait than Newmarket and a signed and dated 1886 oil of the famous undefeated champion Ormonde in a stable by William A. Sextie (fl. 1848-1887) performed solidly enough in reaching £4800 against an estimate of £3000-5000.

The painting was privately entered and in totally untouched condition but, again, the buyer hailed from the private sector. However, trade bidding had been more successful in the Jack Fordham collection of marine paintings that began the section.

The son of a London, New Cross newsagent, Fordham (1915-1982) was a gentleman of leisure who spent a considerable amount of his life in the social orbit of Quentin Crisp, as well as being an enthusiastic painter and photographer of shipping and coastal craft near his home at Maldon in Essex.

A large number of the works included in the collection were apparently gifts from friends and admirers and, although there was nothing of particularly high value on offer, there was some lower-priced material of interest.

This included works like a William Lionel Wylie (1851-1931) watercolour of the German fleet at Kiel and an early 19th century English School ship portrait in oils of the sailing barque Hindoo, both sold at £2800 to responsive enough bidders from the trade.

Also worth a mention is an oil on panel genre scene of a fisherman and his family resting on a sand dune, pictured, which sold to a provincial dealer for an unexpected £3500 against an estimate of £600-800 at Phillips Oxford (15/10% buyer’s premium) on September 13. Measuring 13 by 171/2in (33 x 44cm) and in what the auctioneers described as “very original condition”, the painting, despite the presence of a signature lower left, had been attributed to J. Henry Hume (1858-1881).

However, there were suspicions among the trade that this might be the work of the latter’s sister-in-law, Edith Hume (fl.1862-92), who also exhibited under her maiden name Edith Dunn, and who specialised in the genre of fishermen and their families on the shore.

According to Art Sales Index, only one or two works by Edith Hume turn up in the rooms per year, and since 1995 the best quality oils by the artist have tended to fetch between £4000-5000.