Charterhouse

The German-born watercolourist and musician John Baptist Malchair (c.1730-1812) was a key figure in 18th century Oxford.

Consignments from vendors with a close connection to famous artists are always a welcome boon for any auction.

Found in the roof space of a Devon cottage, an oil painting of a pointer dog in an open field sold for £3400 at Sherborne saleroom Charterhouse (25% buyer’s premium).

Items from the estate of the Dame Elisabeth Frink (1930-93) were included in the Charterhouse (25% buyer’s premium) sale in Sherborne, Dorset, on November 14-15.

In the resilient Beswick market, collectors paid high prices for some rarities – even modern prototypes – at autumn sales.

Estimated at £100-150, this mid-20th century portrait of a fashionably dressed young woman attracted a flurry of bids at Sherborne saleroom Charterhouse (25% buyer’s premium).

Our weekly selection from salerooms.

Landscape painter Sidney Richard Percy (1821-86) is described in Christopher Wood’s Dictionary of Victorian Painters as “a prolific and variable painter, and his prices vary accordingly”.

Works by Namikawa Yasuyuki underline how buyers are aiming at the very best when it comes to the Japanese market ahead of a series of UK sales.

This inter-war ‘English school’ portrait of a seated gentleman wearing a bow tie, bought for around £150 three decades ago, sold for an unexpected £7600 at Charterhouse (21% buyer’s premium) on January 17. The unfinished 4ft 2in x 3ft 4in (1.27 x 1.01m) oil was dated 1922 but unsigned.

Topping a number of good pre-Christmas clock sales was a rare table/bracket clock, among the last made by London ‘Golden Age’ name Daniel Quare (1649-1724) with Stephen Horseman, who became his partner at the Exchange Alley workshop in 1721.