1. Carved smoking pipe
A mid-19th century Continental carved wood pipe bowl modelled as a pulpit and carved with knights standing, estimated at £150-250 at Bellmans.
Bellmans is selling a collection of smoking pipes on May 25, amassed by the managing director of one of the leading tobacco companies.
Charles Finch acquired around 600 pipes over almost 40 years at the beginning of the 20th century. He started his career in 1912 at the age of 13 when he worked as a clerk for cigar and cigarette importer EE Johnson in Hart Street, London, near Tower Hill. His career took him all the way up to be the MD of its subsidiary The Ring Cigarette Company.
While Finch’s son Alan was still a child he accompanied him on weekend trips to junk shops and markets, always trying to find unusual pipes of all shapes and forms to add to the collection. On January 1, 1947, Charles handed the entire collection over to Alan and on his death the collection was passed on to his surviving brothers Dennis and Kenneth. Their descendants are now selling the entire group.
Among the highlights is a mid-19th century Continental carved wood pipe bowl, shown here, which is modelled as a pulpit and carved with knights standing between spiral. Estimate £150-250.
View and bid for this carved pipe via thesaleroom.com.
2. Folding tripod
Folding tripod stand for a military camp table or cauldron in the later 3rd century AD – estimate £6000-8000 at TimeLine on May 25.
Campaign furniture was not a Victorian invention. This articulated folding tripod stand with extendable iron trellis legs would have formed the support for a military camp table or cauldron in the later 3rd century AD. Each leg is ornamented with a bronze female bust.
Folding tripod stands are well known in the ancient world, in both Greek and Roman contexts.
This example comes for sale at TimeLine in Harwich, Essex, on May 25 from an East Anglian arms and armour collection with an earlier provenance to Dutch and Swiss collections.
Estimate £6000-8000. View and bid for this folding tripod stand via thesaleroom.com.
3. Luxembourg Gardens picture
‘Luxembourg Gardens’ by Jessica Dismorr, estimated at £1200-1800 at Roseberys.
Estimated at £1200-1800 as part of Roseberys’ sale of Modern & Contemporary British Art on May 25 is this watercolour c.1910 titled Luxembourg Gardens by Jessica Dismorr (1885-1939). On the back is a pencil life drawing of a nude by the same hand.
Dismorr was an important figure in early British Modernism, exhibiting with the Vorticist group alongside William Roberts and Wyndham Lewis. These early works by the artist made in France demonstrate the influence of Fauvism and Post-Impressionist art on her work, at a time when the artist was involved with the innovative ‘Rhythm’ group.
View and bid for this Jessica Dismorr picture via thesaleroom.com.
4. Minton's charger
Minton’s Pottery wall charger by Willam S Coleman, estimated at £5000-8000 at Woolley & Wallis.
The sale of British Art Pottery at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on May 25-26 includes this fine Minton’s Pottery wall charger by Willam S Coleman.
Mounted in its original ebonies and gilded frame, The Butterfly Collector depicts a young girl kneeling before a collection of exotic butterflies, in an Aesthetic room setting with goldfish in a bowl. The charger measures 19in (48cm) with an overall diameter of 23in (57cm).
Estimate £5000-8000. View and bid for this Minton’s charger via thesaleroom.com.
5. Limoges panel
Late 15th/early 16th century Limoges panel, estimated at £4000-6000 at Matthew Barton.
Matthew Barton’s European and Asian Works of Art Auction on May 26 includes this late 15th/early 16th century Limoges panel, estimated at £4000-6000.
The panel is set in a later silver frame, 4in (10.5cm) long, inscribed to the base Venite Adoremus Dominum, the reverse engraved with a coat of arms, also with two Thos F. Flannary Coll. Chicago labels, one numbered 14, the other 999.
It was with Stora and Co, New York, before 1963; then the Thomas F Flannery collection and his sale at Sotheby’s in London in December 1983; then with Trinity Fine Art, London.
The Arms may be those of the van den Ende family of Holland.
According to the New York Times, Flannery (1926-80), a Chicago neon-sign producer, “was a born collector. He began by acquiring guns and clocks – mechanical things – in his teens. Then, at the age of 21, he made his first purchase in the field of medieval and Renaissance art, a collecting interest that absorbed him until his death.”
The NYT added that his taste was “shaped, probably, by his Irish roots and his education under the Jesuits at Loyola University”. This enamel plaque was exhibited in Enamels: the XII to the XVI Century at the Martin D’Arcy Gallery of Art, Loyola University of Chicago, in 1970.
His collection of medieval and Renaissance art, numbering more than 430 objects, was auctioned over two days at Sotheby’s in London, totalling around £2m.
View and bid for this Limoges panel via thesaleroom.com.
6. Beach huts picture
‘Beach Huts at Walberswick’ by Leon Underwood, guided at £500-800 at Mallams.
Fifteen works by Leon Underwood (1890-1975) feature in Mallams’ Modern Art & Design sale in Oxford on May 26-27.
This 11 x 15in (27 x 37cm) watercolour Beach Huts at Walberswick, signed and dated 1932, is guided at £500-800. View and bid for this beach huts picture via thesaleroom.com.
