Chorley's

Group of paintings by one of the less well-known masters of the medium comes to light

An early 17th century Limoges enamel draw purse attracted a flurry of bids at Chorley’s Attic Sale in Gloucestershire. Set with period portraits of a lady on one side and a gentleman on the other, the accessory has remained intact for about 400 years – in most examples the fabric has deteriorated significantly.

A spate of early to mid-20th century portraits of society figures and important personalities generated stiff competition at UK sales in London and the regions.

Ceramics, furniture, glass and figure highlights from a range of sales under same banner.

A buoyant specialist subject in its own right, studio pottery appeared at a number of the recent Design sales with material by major British names selling in the expected low four-figure range.

More refined items are available in Chorley’s Cotswolds Country House sale in Prinknash Abbey on November 19-20 but few will attract more attention than this rare survivor from the early 1940s: a roll of loo paper featuring satirical cartoons of characters from Nazi Germany.

Shown below are the frontispiece and title-page of Newes from the East-Indies..., a 1638 account by William Bruton of his travels in ‘Bengalla’.

Japanese carved ivories of a tiger and an elephant soared far above estimate at Chorley’s (22% buyer’s premium).

A clutch of 19th and 20th century marine and maritime pictures attracted competitive bidding in summer sales held at three auction houses in southern England.

A consignment of furniture from the medieval Eastington Hall, Worcestershire, boosted Chorley’s (20% buyer’s premium) latest sale in Prinknash Abbey, Gloucestershire.

By the 1980s, Thomas Mercer of St Albans had made almost a third of all chronometers in history – including that used by Ernest Shackleton to navigate his men to Elephant Island and eventual rescue during the Trans-Arctic Expedition of 1914.

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.

A watercolour of a thoroughbred racehorse auction appeared at Chorley’s (20% buyer’s premium) of Prinknash Abbey Park, Gloucestershire, on May 21 – 123 years to the day since it had itself last sold at auction.

A large oil on panel map by MacDonald Gill celebrating the presence of stationer WH Smith on the British high street in the 1920s was hammered down at £50,000 in Gloucestershire.

As featured on the cover of ATG No 2377, more treasures associated with the ‘Tiger of Mysore’, Tipu Sultan, are scheduled for auction in March at the Antony Cribb sale.