Orange Cards from a deck celebrating the Glorious Revolution - £8000 at Dominic Winter.
1. Playing cards
The designs on these playing cards (above), sometimes titled 'Orange Cards', are generally attributed to the anti-Catholic propagandist Francis Barlow. The numerals on each card enable the story to be followed in chronological order, with scenes varying from the macabre, such as 'The Midwife cutting her Husband to Pieces', to the satirical, for example 'A Priest selling of Relicks by Auction' in which the relics are 'Tho[mas] à Becket's Old Stockins'.
Numerous similar packs were produced in the years after the so-called Glorious Revolution in 1688, each emphasising various aspects of the events leading up to the reign of William and Mary. The British Museum dates its similar sets to c.1700-25.
The cards pictured here are from a complete deck of 52 offered at Dominic Winter in South Cerney on September 7 as part of a private collection of playing cards. Estimated at £2000-3000, the deck sold at £8000.
2. Birth tablet
Birth tablets, the 3in (7cm) circular plaques made to commemorate the births of local children, are unique to Lowestoft and add to the factory’s great sense of place.
This example, offered by Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on September 13 as part of a fine collection of Lowestoft porcelain from an East Anglian family, is inscribed 'Maryann Lifin born November 4 1790'. To the reverse is a vignette of a dove holding a leafing twig in its beak.
The Liffin family were closely connected to the Lowestoft factory. Mary Liffin (nee Redgrave) was a porcelain decorator who had married John Liffin in 1785. Her death in May 1795 at the age of 33 is commemorated on the reverse of another birth tablet that records the birth of Martha Liffin on August 17 1794.
Baptism records at St Margaret's Church in Lowestoft show Mary Ann Liffin was baptised on 7th November. She never married and when her sister Martha was widowed in 1841 they chose to live together. Both are buried at St Margaret's churchyard.
The auction record for a tablet is that inscribed Thos Anderson Born Sept 13th 1790 and painted to the reverse with an Oriental landscape. Sold at Phillips in 1996 for £4600, it took £14,000 at Sprake in 2006. Prices today are more circumspect: the last offered for sale at Bonhams in 2021 inscribed Mary Rushmer born Octr 29 1796, took £7000.
Mary Ann Liffin’s tablet, formerly part of the celebrated Colman collection of Lowestoft sold by Sotheby’s in 1948, was offered with a guide of £6000-8000 and got away at the lower end of expectations.
3. Football programme
Alan Sunderland’s 1979 FA Cup winner's medal - £16,000 at Graham Budd.
The game between Arsenal v Manchester United in 1979 provided one the greatest finishes in FA Cup final history. Arsenal, managed by Terry Neill, were 2-0 up by half-time and appeared to be cruising to a comfortable victory as the match entered the final five minutes of normal time. But there was another act to play. After two quick goals by McQueen and McIlroy for the Red Devils the scores were suddenly level and extra-time beckoned. However, in the 89th minute Brady and Rix combined to cross for Alan Sunderland to score at the far post.
Sunderland’s 1979 FA Cup winner's medal was sold by sporting memorabilia specialist Graham Budd in London on September 6.
Offered in its original fitted case, together with a Cup Final programme signed by Sunderland plus associated photographs, it was guided at £6000-8000 but sold to a buyer via thesaleroom.com at £16,000.
4. Keith Vaughan picture
Keith Vaughan’s Landscape with Whistling Boy, 1945 - £29,000 at Great Western Auctions.
A conscientious objector conscripted into the Non-Combatant Corps in 1941, the artist Keith Vaughan (1912-1977) was stationed at Ashton Gifford in Wiltshire then Malton in Yorkshire. Working as a clerk and German interpreter, army duties precluded studio work and large-scale painting in oil, but he worked on a series of gouaches and ink drawings depicting landscape and army life. His diary at the time (in the Tate Britain) was preoccupied by subjects such as loneliness, the horrors of war and the arrival of VE Day.
Vaughan’s first solo show was held at Alex Reid & Lefevre, London in 1944 with a follow-up exhibition at the gallery in 1946. It was quite possible that the 11 x 15in (28 x 37cm) gouache and ink Landscape with Whistling Boy, 1945 was exhibited at that second show. To the verso is a Lefevre Gallery label plus a possible artist's label inscribed and dated Yorkshire 1945. This well-preserved work from a key period in Vaughan’s development came for sale at Great Western Auctions in Glasgow on September 9 where, estimated at £6000-8000, it took £29,000.
5. Mustard pot
Novelty Victorian silver mustard pot - £6500 at Lyon & Turnbull.
Novelty condiment sets inspired by the far reaches of the British Empire are a feature of Victorian silver. This example formed as a chimpanzee in Oriental clothing (with a spoon providing plume to the hat) is assayed for London 1867 and the partnership of George Richards and Edward Brown.
It would originally have been accompanied by two other condiment pieces. A complete cruet of this rare and desirable type forms part of the archival collection of mustard manufacturer Colman’s in Norwich while another took £21,000 at Bonhams in 2008.
Nineteenth and early 20th century novelty silver continues to be one of the strengths of the collecting category. This mustard pot came for sale at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh with a guide of £5000-8000 and took £6500.
