Woolley & Wallis

Any sale where European silver plays a big role is likely to see the goldsmiths of Nuremberg well represented, and so it was at Woolley & Wallis’ most recent two-day auction in Salisbury.

A rare blue and white version of William De Morgan’s design of a kingfisher catching a fish while perched on a branch appeared at the latest Arts & Crafts sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury.

A selection of natural pearl jewellery will be included in Woolley and Wallis’ designated sale on July 19 in Salisbury.

In their silver sale on July 17 and 18, Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury will put up for auction a fine late-Victorian silver-gilt Monteith bowl.

IF pearls reached the peak of their popularity in antiquity, when the Roman general Vitellius is said to have financed an entire military campaign by selling just one of his mother’s pearl earrings, then the market in 2012 does not rest too far behind.

ENTERED for sale by a descendent of the family for whom it was made, this carved wood and painted plaster model of an East End butcher’s shop sold for £22,000 at Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury.

CLIVE Stewart-Lockhart, deputy chairman of Dreweatts, is to become managing director of Woolley and Wallis, the Salisbury-based salerooms.

Moorcroft Boy recorded one of the great comebacks in racing history when he recovered from a horrific injury at Aintree in 1995 to win the Scottish National the following year.

SALISBURY auctioneers Woolley & Wallis saw two more lots make over £1m last week.

THIS locket, believed to contain the hair of Admiral Lord Nelson to one side and Lady Emma Hamilton to the reverse, was previously unknown to Nelson experts but it turned up at Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury after being consigned by a vendor in Australia who has family connections to Portsmouth.

UNDERLINING the impact of the market for Chinese works of art on the UK auction landscape, Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis posted total hammer sales in 2010 of £23.36m.

HELPED by the boom in Chinese works of art, UK regional salerooms continue to rewrite the record books. Following the £43m vase at Bainbridges of Ruislip, Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis posted two more seven-figure sums for jades.

CONTRIBUTING handsomely to the largest grossing sale ever conducted by a regional auctioneer, this 7in (18cm) high Chinese Imperial white jade bell sold for £2m hammer at Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury on May 19 – the first day of a two-catalogue Asian art sale.

THIS George IV silver-gilt presentation vase and stand by Philip Rundell, London 1823, was the highlight of the so-called Russell silver, a £250,000 cache of Regency plate by Paul Storr and Philip Rundell sold by Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis.

A PAIR of silver-gilt waiters made by William Burwash for William Beckford, “the wealthiest commoner in England” who built the lavish Gothic Revival Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire, sold for £36,000 at auction last week.

IT was undoubtedly a challenging year for many but two of the UK’s leading regional art and antiques salerooms enjoyed record sales in 2009.

METASTASIS, to most people, is a word with rather grim connotations – referring as it does to the spread of cancer. Applied to a set of playing cards, however, it has an altogether different and more attractive meaning.

ALBERT Richard Smith was obsessed from childhood with the idea that he might one day climb Mont Blanc. There were false starts and setbacks, financial and social, but in 1851 he finally got to stand on the peak of his dreams and spent the next few years building a small fortune on the strength of that achievement.

JUST when you thought it was safe to go back into the softening Martinware market, along comes a £26,000 spoon-warmer.

SALISBURY auctioneers Woolley & Wallis have broken their own UK regional record with the sale last week of a Qianlong jade carving of a water buffalo for £3.4m. It establishes a massive new UK landmark for any work of art sold at auction outside London.