Tennants

Private bidders were overtaken as dealers found warmth in the best traditional furniture and chattels offered at auction.

Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) of Leyburn claimed a new auction record for Bertram Priestman (1868-1951) when it sold a painting of an extensive river landscape by the local artist.

An early 17th century work on …the Whole Practise of Artillery made a record sum in sale held by Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) of Leyburn.

Pitched at £100-150, a small North American Native woven pouch attracted interest from London, Continental and US specialists at Tennants’ (23% buyer’s premium) Militaria & Ethnographica offering at Leyburn.

A trio of auctioneers have announced plans for further expansion into the London market. Joined by specialists in new disciplines, The Pedestal has plans for a London sale, Tennants has taken offices in the capital while Chiswick Auctions is hiring more staff.

Two notable single-owner collections, augmented by items from the round of Oriental art sales, made spring a bumper crop in the specialist world of fans.

“The open road, the dusty highway, the heath, the common, the hedgerows, the rolling downs!”

Chinese porcelain resumed its traditional dominance among the Oriental offerings at Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) in Leyburn.

Unlike other European jewellers, where designers and makers were often shrouded in anonymity, the Georg Jensen Co promoted its craftspeople and encouraged them to become names in their own right.

Modern British art from a variety of movements dominated proceedings at the Spring Fine Art sale held at Tennants (17.5% buyer’s premium).

The sort of large-scale, widely varied provincial auction which had Cheffins auctioneer Luke Macdonald enthusing “it was like selling used to be 15 years ago” after his March 7-8 sale at Cambridge (ATG No 2335) is rarer than it used to be, but plainly alive and well and prospering.

Two William and Mary side tables, one period and the other catalogued as ‘style’, bringing different results in March.

With species extermination very much in the news following the death of the world’s last male northern white rhino, there was added poignancy to a cased and stuff bird offered at Summers Place Auctions (25% buyer’s premium).

Aldine press books of the early 16th century, mostly it seems in a good but much later full morocco or calf bindings, produced a number of the higher bids in a recent Yorkshire sale.

Contemporary art drew considerable interest at Tennants (20% buyer’s premium).

On a lesser scale than the exceptional £35,000 George II chairs at Holloway’s sale, but standing out from the general run of brown furniture, were other encouraging results across the country in February.