Lawrences of Crewkerne

After working together for more than a year, Somerset auctioneers Lawrences and Greenslade Taylor Hunt have decided to bring their partnership to an end. It does not, however, signal the end of regular sales in Taunton.

Drama at Lawrences of Crewkerne on January 17 when this remarkable silver gilt and rock crystal vessel, left behind its estimate of just £100-200 to sell to a buyer in the room at £220,000 (plus 17.5 per cent buyer’s premium).

Taunton auctioneers Greenslade Taylor Hunt are to merge with fellow Somerset saleroom Lawrences of Crewkerne.

THE first afternoon session of a January 20-21 antiques sale held by Lawrences of Crewkerne presented more than 400 lots of books, amongst them a good collection of private press books featuring the wood-engraved illustrations of David Jones.

A militaria section at Lawrences’ (15% buyer's premium) October 28-19 sale featured a quality, privately entered, 12-lot cache of weapons which suffered not one casualty and racked up a £30,000 total.

SOLD at £1650 in a July 6 sale held by Lawrences of Crewkerne was a group of ten volumes, mostly in contemporary full or half calf, that were grouped under the heading ‘Scandal’.

IN a 19th century binding of blue straight grained morocco, a 1548, first English language edition of Bishop Edward Fox’s The True Dyfferes between ye regall power and the Ecclesiastical power, translated from Fox’s 1534 Latin original by his friend and admirer, Henry, Lord Stafford, was sold at £1400 in a July 6 sale held by Lawrences of Crewkerne.

IN rebacked old panelled calf, a 1584 first edition of Welsh historian David Powell’s “corrected, augmented and continued” version of the Historie of Cambria, now called Wales left in manuscript form by Hugh Lhuyd, was sold for £1350 in a Lawrences of Crewkerne sale of July 6.

BOUND in full calf, a 1579-80 edition of John Kitchin’s The Authoritie of al Justices of Peace... was sold for £700 in a Lawrences of Crewkerne sale of July 6.

OFFERED as part of a Lawrences of Crewkerne sale of July 6 was ‘The Valehouse Collection of Letters to Mrs W.K. Clifford’. Though little read nowadays, ‘Lucy’ Clifford was immensely popular in late Victorian and early Edwardian times and was even classed with Edith Wharton, Joseph Conrad and H.G. Wells as one of those whose books “will never die”.

BOUND in contemporary panelled calf, a 1704 first of An Historical & Geographical Description of Formosa..., the two folding engraved plates (of 16 in all) torn but skilfully repaired, realised £600 in a Lawrences of Crewkerne sale of July 6.

RIGHT: translated by William Hamilton, the 1661 first English edition of Blaise François de Pagan, the Comte de Merveilles’ Historical & Geographical Description of the Great Country and River of the Amazones in America..., contains this important folding engraved map showing French ambitions in the area.

RIGHT: translated by William Hamilton, the 1661 first English edition of Blaise François de Pagan, the Comte de Merveilles’ Historical & Geographical Description of the Great Country and River of the Amazones in America..., contains this important folding engraved map showing French ambitions in the area.

IN a Lawrences of Crewkerne sale of July 6, a 1678 first (in full panelled calf) of Some Proposals for the imploying of the Poor. Especially in and about the City of London. And for the Prevention of Begging, the only known publication of the philanthropist Thomas Firmin, was sold at £1100.

ALONG with most examples of standard furniture, 18th and 19th century bureaux are not bringing the prices they were a couple of years back and vendors are having to adjust expectations in order to find buyers. Nevertheless, more unusual examples, or those with an extra degree of quality, still meet enthusiastic reactions and it was interesting to see two 18th century Continental walnut bureaux among the higher sellers at Lawrences' (12.5% buyer's premium) February 3-5 sale.

EXCEPTING the Norwich Union (one-day) cup that the team picked up a couple of seasons back, trophies for Kent County Cricket Club have been a bit thin on the ground in recent years. By today’s county standards, a St Lawrence (Canterbury) gate of 4000 is considered a good one and – though Sussex picked up the county title last year – today it is Surrey that remain the side to beat.

The firm of Wright & Mansfield (1860-86) are often cited as the instigators of the Georgian Revival and, unlike many of their contemporaries who produced Victorian pastiches of earlier styles, are renowned for their craftsmanship, using high quality materials for accurate recreations of the Adam and Sheraton style – often difficult to distinguish from the 18th century originals.

CONDITION is a prime concern in the 20th century print market but occasionally images come on the market that are so rare and so striking that condition concerns take a lower priority – particularly if the buyer has been searching for such a piece for 30 years.

“Full of fire and and zealous faculty breaking its way through all conventionalism to such truth as it can conceive” – thus was the forthright opinion of John Ruskin on seeing George Tinworth’s collection of eight terracotta panels of biblical scenes at the 1875 Royal Academy Exhibition.

The German painter Hans Purrmann (1880-1966) is described by Bénézit as an artist who was heavily influenced by Matisse (with whom he had contact in Paris from 1906-1914), but who lacked the greater artist’s “sense de lumière et de la couleur”.