1. Gibbs family’s side tables – £8500
Dreweatts offered the contents from Oakley House, a large Georgian farmhouse in Suffolk that was the final residence of Lord Wraxall on May 1.
The sale included items collected by four generations of the Gibbs family whose 19th century wealth was built upon the sale of fertilizer and specifically the importation of top-grade Peruvian guano.
Some of the pieces, including this pair of 18th century North Italian walnut and olivewood serpentine side tables (estimate £5000-8000) were previously at Tyntesfield, the Gibbs family’s gothic revival home sold to the National Trust in 2002. Others were acquired by Eustace Gibbs, 3rd Baron Wraxall (1929-2017) during his career as a British diplomat.
The tables sold to an online bidder at £8500 (estimate £5000-8000).
2. Lord Nelson prints – £840
‘Baron Nelson of the Nile’ (after Burke) that sold with three other prints relating to Horatio Nelson for £840 at Horner’s of Acle, Norfolk.
Sold for £840 (estimate £20-30) at Horner’s of Acle, Norfolk on April 27 were four prints relating to the county’s most famous son, Horatio Nelson of Burnham Thorpe.
The prints were Baron Nelson of the Nile (after Burke), published after the battle in 1798, plus a trio of posthumous works published shortly after Trafalgar: Nelson’s Glory by George Andrews and Lord Nelson’s Funeral Procession from Greenwich Hospital to White Hall and The Ceremony of Lord Nelson’s Internment at St Paul’s (after Rev Holt Waring).
The first two prints, both uncoloured, both appear to be scarce.
3. Qing jades – £7200
Three Qing relief carved jade discs – £7200 at Tennants.
Estimated at £100-150 by Tennants of Leyburn on April 27, this trio of Qing relief carved jade discs, the largest 2.5in (6cm) diameter, sold to an online bidder at £7200.
The jades, each of a light and uniform colour, were the choice entry to a 17-lot private collection of Chinese hardstone carvings that attracted buyers from across China, the United States and the UK.
4. Hajj scroll – £26,000
An illuminated paper Hajj scroll – £26,000 at Bloomsbury Auctions.
This illuminated paper Hajj scroll, dated 1137AH (for 1725 AD) combines panels of stylised calligraphy with illustrations of Mecca and Medina. Hajj certificate scrolls with illustrations of this type are scarce in themselves but, remarkably, this one appears to have been presented to a woman named Fatemeh bint Abdullah Al-Hussaynieh.
Its similarity to another much earlier example in the British Library also dedicated to a female pilgrim suggests it may be from a North African (perhaps Egyptian) workshop.
At Bloomsbury Auctions in London on April 30 it sold to an online bidder at £26,000 (estimate £10,000-15,000).
5. Aristide Maillol lithograph – £3200
‘Nue Assise’, an Aristide Maillol lithograph – £3200 at Cheffins.
Nue Assise, a 13 x 11in (34 x 27cm) lithograph by the French sculptor, painter, and printmaker Aristide Maillol (1861-1944) sold to an online bidder for £3200 (estimate £70-100) at Cheffins in Cambridge on April 27.
It probably dates from c.1924 based on a series of terracotta works of female nudes in similar complex poses made at the turn of the 20th century.
6. Sandstone carving – £5600
Deemed a medieval carving, this characterful sandstone head, 10½in (26 cm) high, sold to an online bidder for £5600 (estimate £100-200) at Wilkinsons in Doncaster on April 28.
A sandstone head, believed to be medieval – £5600 at Wilkinsons.
