Cheffins

Cheffins was founded in 1825 and is a UK firm of valuers, surveyors, property advisers and auctioneers.

The company’s fine art auctioneers and valuers business is based in an office in Cambridge. Its sales include regular antiques and interiors auctions, fine art, art and design, specialist books, maps an prints, an oriental sale and a wine sale.


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Jupe’s great invention in miniature

28 September 2009

THIS diminutive table seen at Cambridge auctioneers Cheffins on the second day of their September 23-24 sale was a miniature version of the famous circular expanding dining table designed by Robert Jupe of Welbeck Street, London.

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Saved from the flames twice – the unique Campbell archive

26 March 2007

Cambridge auctioneers Cheffins are to offer a recently rediscovered archive of slides that depict the daredevil Malcolm Campbell in his pomp.

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Do buying patterns reflect present conditions?

23 December 2004

Is there a Christmas factor in the auction rooms? Cheffins auctioneer Jonathan Law (Buyer’s premium: 15 per cent) believes that the season may have some effect in putting a little pressure on people to buy rather than wait.

High degree of quality is right format at Cambridge

11 May 2004

VOLUME sales have their value but the conscious decision of Cambridge auctioneers Cheffins (15% buyer's premium) to go for quality rather than quantity – relegating lower-end consignments to fortnightly general outings and keeping the best for five well-promoted annual sales – has proved a winning format.

The Vettriano factor of 1888 ... Backdated feel-good nostalgia and a limited technique ... does Sadler’s appeal sound familiar?

05 May 2004

HAVE we just had a glimpse of the Jack Vettriano market in 100 years’ time? Any connection between the Walter Dendy Sadler (1854-1923) painting of three top-hatted Regency gentlemen being served a bottle of port in an inn garden which made £50,000 at the Cambridge rooms of Cheffins (15% buyer’s premium) on April 22, and the £660,000 Singing Butler might seem tenuous in the extreme.

Cheffins swell SOFAA’s ranks

31 March 2004

CHEFFINS of Cambridge have joined the Society of Fine Art Auctioneers and Valuers, swelling the association’s ranks of auction firm members to 34, including many of the biggest names in the business.

Cheffins Cheered by £450,000 record

16 February 2004

Cheffins of Cambridge are celebrating what must rank as one of the most dramatic – and certainly one of the highest – prices ever recorded in the UK provinces after their February 11-12 sale that included a pair of white marble seated figures by Sir Henry Cheere (1703-81).

Transferring knowledge

19 June 2003

Cheffins will sell a Suffolk collection of printed creamwares in their June 25-26 sale. Specialist George Archdale has made many personal discoveries during the cataloguing of the £30,000 collection, including the origin of the popular transfer Palemon and Lavinia.

Entomology and a £2000 royal Valentine

03 April 2003

THE COVER of the catalogue issued by Cheffins for their Cambridge sale of March 19 made clever use of what I take to have been the coloured title of the 1794 French edition of Moses Harris L’Aurelien... that they sold for £4800. In rubbed red morocco gilt, this famous study of moths and butterflies was a large paper copy illustrated with 44 coloured plates, with text in French and English.

An amateur’s gift was precious after all

20 January 2003

ON December 10 Cambridge auctioneers Cheffins (15% buyer’s premium) offered the residual contents from the home of amateur painter and gallery owner Olive Cook, whose early friendships with Henry Moore and Eric Ravilious helped hone her artistic eye.

Still a dreamboat at 101

03 October 2002

It’s difficult to imagine how many children and would-be children have enjoyed a trip on this very original ride since it was first constructed by Savage Bros Ltd of Kings Lynn in 1901. Known as Harry Lee’s Famous Steam Double Yacht Ride, its two yachts, Columbia and Shamrock, carry an impressive capacity of 30 passengers.

Family history makes a sofa a different proposition

12 July 2002

It may not look like a particularly important piece of furniture, but this early 19th century mahogany framed sofa, right, played a crucial role in the dynastic history of Cleveland Lodge, North Yorkshire.

Driving up Walpole

25 April 2002

One of the earliest known portraits of Sir Robert Walpole, England’s first Prime Minister, is to be sold at Cheffin’s Cambridge salerooms on May 14, as part of the collection of Cambridge academic Sir John Plumb.

The coming woman – and one to watch out for

17 April 2002

THE names of two women artists, one very well known, the other undeservedly obscure, provided talking points at two provincial sales in March.

Summoned by catalogue…

16 April 2002

“HEAVILY used” is not often a description that is likely to add value to a lot at auction. However, Betjemanians would certainly have been far from put off by the condition of a set of 32 Ordnance Survey maps that appeared at Cheffins of Cambridge on March 7.

And recalling the Great War, heroism on a plate

25 February 2002

Would that every soldier was awarded a piece of porcelain, as well as a medal, for acts of outstanding bravery. What a civilised army that would make.

Lawrence and Burton triumph

07 February 2002

THE LAST 450 or so lots of a two-day general antiques sale on 6 December at Cheffins, Cambridge comprised books, many of them multiples.

Cambridge blues, and reds, and yellows – books get the full colour treatment…

13 December 2001

The book section of a general antiques sale held by Cheffins of Cambridge on November 1 ran to only 58 lots, but this saleroom produces impressive, colour illustrated catalogues and no fewer that a dozen of those lots were illustrated, some of them at full page.

The case of the disappearing fish

13 March 2000

UK: The factors which make for a desirable cased fish are four-fold: the case (bowfronts are most popular), the label of a good taxidermist such as Cooper, condition and (as the joker in the pack) the beast itself.

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