Auctions

This enigmatic, 7in (18cm) high, early 18th century delftware plaque featured in Sotheby’s November 21 sale at Bond Street where it fetched a mid-estimate £26,000, selling to London dealer Jonathan Horne.

Snowfall may be sparse across the Alps this season, but it didn’t stop the storm of buyers at the tenth annual ski poster sale at Christie’s South Kensington on January 18 from raising their paddles.

Wessex Auction Rooms, a new purpose-designed saleoom, has just opened on the outskirts of the Wiltshire market town of Chippenham.

19th century furniture may not be the height of fashion, but this wine table is one of only a handful known to carry the label of Anton Seuffert, New Zealand’s premier cabinetmaker and inlayer. Many of the timbers seen to the 23in (58cm) diameter top are timbers native to New Zealand.

Already 2007 looks set to follow 2006 as the year of the dealer’s stock sale. As reported last week, renowned international style guru and interior decorator Keith Skeel is to follow in the footsteps of Partridge, Dick Turpin, and John Jesse by selling his collection of ‘antiques and eccentricities’ at auction.

Aynsley China has a history stretching back to 1775 when John Aynsley first started producing ceramics in Longton, Staffordshire. Its enduring reputation is for its bone china tablewares decorated with floral sprays or fruit in the manner of Royal Worcester, or for its commemorative pieces. They remain very affordable and even Aynsley’s well-painted cabinet plates featuring British landmarks usually cost less than £100.

MARK Wilson, the man at the centre of the bidding controversy reported on this page last week, has told ATG that he will not bid for antiques at auction again.

LONDON-based specialist book auctioneers Bloomsbury Auctions enjoyed a successful inaugural sale in Rome on December 6 where a total of €801,000 (£545,000) was realised.

Dublin and Edinburgh rooms all but double sales totals as Bonhams raise stakes in Scotland

Like needlework, letter writing and mastering the harpsichord, rolled paperwork or quillwork was deemed a suitable pursuit for a young lady of the 18th century.

Sotheby’s are to sell the stock of Bourdon House, the historic Georgian townhouse in Mayfair recently sold by London dealers Mallett.

Illustrated by Denver Gillen, Robert L. May’s poem about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was first issued in 1939 as a give-away booklet for children by a Chicago department store, Montgomery Ward.

JOHN Taylor was the Sawrey joiner and wheelwright, whose wife and stout, elderly daughter, Agnes Anne, kept the village shop immortalised by Beatrix Potter in Ginger and Pickles. But the first Taylor to appear in one of her books was his son, young John, who was the model for the terrier carpenter John Joiner in The Roly Poly Pudding.

The highlight of this year’s Old Master picture series in London was a pair of Roman vedute by Bernardo Bellotto (Venice 1721-1780 Warsaw).

The 21st century equivalent of an unknown masterpiece brought in to the front counter of a saleroom must be the treasure that surfaces on an auctioneer’s computer via a routine email.

Initially catalogued as “an Eastern walnut three-tier table, brass mounted and fitted three flaps, 2ft (64cm) wide when open” and estimated at just £150-200, the appraisal of this stylish table seen at Simon Chorley of Southam, near Cheltenham, Gloucester on November 30 was radically upgraded when it was identified as the work of Aesthetic architect and designer Edward William Godwin (1833-1886).

ON December 28, 1792 Anglo-Irish statesman, orator and philosopher Edmund Burke (1729-97) enacted the melodrama in Parliament that became known as the Dagger Scene.

A set of 38 individual original metal printing plates used for the illustrations for John Lennon’s first book, are to go under the hammer on December 2 at Dickins of Middle Claydon, Bucks.

Son of Sir James Thornhill, brother-in-law to William Hogarth and serjeant painter to the King, John Thornhill was also a founder member of the Whig Beefsteak Club.

While many are still finding the market sluggish for standard English brown furniture, there is no shortage of demand at the top end as shown by results from the latest sales in London.