Bellmans

A lot comprising 31 posters plugging top groups and festivals from 1969-72 was the major hit at Bellmans’ (22% buyer’s premium) Photographs, Posters and Prints sale.

Italian sculptors were the hottest property as garden statuary flourished at summer sales in the Home Counties.

In the 1950s French designer Raymond Cohen and his firm Cohray were producing a range of ultra-modern furniture that – although made for the machine age – were all put together by hand.

Golden Age collaboration between two London clockmakers leads a look at the market including hammer highlights, auction previews and dealer news.

Eardley Norton, who is listed at 49 St John’s Street, Clerkenwell between 1762- 94, enjoyed a reputation as a skilled mechanic and the maker of complex timepieces, sometimes with musical and astronomical movements.

The series of Victorian carriage clocks by James McCabe – the son of a Belfast clockmaker of the same name who came to London in the 1770s and worked at the Royal Exchange from 1804 – are typically beautifully made with exemplary twin fusee striking movements.

This pastel portrait of a Singaporean merchant by Percy Carpenter (1820-95) is believed to have broken a 30-year auction record for the artist.

In any ‘top 10’ list of 30th birthday party themes, a 1980s or ‘90s leitmotif ranks high.

The May 14-16 Interiors series at Bellmans of Wisborough Green, West Sussex, features a substantial Asian section.

Three oils by the popular East Anglian artist Edward Seago (1910-74) sold for £44,000 hammer at Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium) in a mammoth four-day sale held at its Sussex saleroom.

A very rare panorama of London that made £90,000 in a recent West Sussex sale was the Pick of the week in ATG No 2387, but many other things among the 200 lots offered in that April 5 auction caught the eye.

Underpinned by bids from the internet, silver from beyond the British Isles is these days a stronger feature of provincial sales.

A very rare panorama of 17th century London depicting the city skyline in the wake of the Great Fire of 1666 has sold at auction for £90,000.

Silver across five centuries caught the eye at provincial sales in February.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales below £1700, including a a Francis Cyril Rose self-portrait.

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.