Tayler and Fletcher

Two works bringing demand at different auctions recently showed the market’s continued appetite for works by Modern British female artists.

Estimated at £20-40, this large ‘continental’ turquoise-glazed bowl sold for a surprise £5800 at Tayler & Fletcher (21% buyer’s premium) in the Cotswolds.

A group of father-and-son lots related to the Royal Navy may have been small in size but revealed a combined service in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars that was lengthy.

Serving in the Glider Pilot Regiment was a tough task during the Second World War.

The vast majority of cushion-moulded mirrors from the late 17th century have lost their original cresting, which was both flamboyant and fragile.

The medal group of a colonel believed to be the most heavily decorated Military Police officer in the history of the corps sold for a mid-estimate £2400.

In 1793, well in advance of the Slave Trade Act (1807) and the Slavery Abolition Act (1833), 275 British men, women and children attempted to settle an uninhabited island off the coast of Sierra Leone.

This set of table and chairs by the ever-popular Mouseman had been bought from the Kilburn workshops in the 1970s by the vendor’s parents.

Pleased as the vendors were to be told by Gloucestershire auctioneer Martin Lambert that a 1920s trunk from their late parents’ home could be worth £2000, they were happier when pre-sale interest in Tayler & Fletcher’s recent sale brought a revised estimate of £2500-4000.

Among the best furniture lots in the regions so far this year was the small early 19th century centre table attributed to George Bullock (1777-1818) offered by Stride & Son (18% buyer’s premium) on March 8.

Among the most desirable of all needlework samplers are those associated with pupils of the orphanages, asylums and charity schools of the Georgian and Victorian eras.

Entered by a leading UK college, two very similar pairs of mid-18th century mahogany lecterns, one illustrated above, became the focus of two major West Country dealers at Tayler & Fletcher’s (20% buyer’s premium) June 22 sale at Bourton-in-the-Water.