Auctions

SOLD at Sotheby’s (20% buyer’s premium) for £10,500 on December 9 was a copy in modern limp vellum of the Epigrammata of Joan Latinus, a work that praises John of Austria for his recent victory over the Turks at Lepanto.

BONHAMS Knightsbridge (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) Science and Marine outing on February 25 was hardly awash with blockbuster entries, but their disappointment at not selling John Gould’s cased display of humming birds (estimated to fetch £30,000-50,000 but bought in at £12,500 despite pre-sale collector interest) was somewhat allayed by the healthy bid placed for this Victorian octagonal double-cased shell Valentine (shown here).

AT 1620 lots, the January 27-28 sale held by Keys (10% buyer’s premium) at Aylsham, was a little smaller than many of the Norfolk rooms’ mammoth events but it followed a familiar pattern. Speedy selling of two- and three-figure pieces was supported by a handful of better offerings selling into four figures.

DEALERS are always looking out for a seriously undercatalogued lot and at Amersham Auction Rooms (15% buyer’s premium) on February 5 they found one.

This Kangxi period (1662-1722) blue and white porcelain brushwasher was a cut above other entries in Stride & Son’s (15% buyer’s premium) 1007-lot Chichester outing.

WITH thousands of middle-class homes being turned into white boxes every week, how on earth can English auctioneers sustain the market for middle-of-the-road Victorian pictures?

This pair of early 19th century mahogany and brass-bound peat buckets soared to £68,000 plus 19.5% premium – six times their estimate – at Bonhams’ March 2 fine English and Continental furniture sale in Bond Street.

IN April 1912, Miss Lenox-Conyngham was travelling with three relatives from Southampton to Cherbourg, but though this was just a short channel crossing, she decided that it was worthwhile dashing off a letter to a nephew on the ship’s notepaper.

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.

THERE was plenty to tempt toy collectors in the provinces in late January and early February with over 1000 wide-ranging lots catering to all tastes and offered in three different sales.

Highlight of the sale conducted by Andrew Grant at the Bank House Golf and Country Club at Bransford, Worcester on February 19 were two Royal Worcester potpourri vases decorated by John Stinton. Both carried fine renditions of the artist’s trademark Highland cattle in moorland, including this example standing 12in (30cm) high with twin leaf-form handles and piercing and ribbon swags to the neck.

Bonhams are consolidating their reputation for high-profile and prestigious single-owner ceramics collections with another big name to add to the recent roll-call. After Bernard Watney, Norman Stretton, Billie Paine et al come Jeanne and Milton Zorensky, the first part of whose mammoth collection of First Period Worcester is to be offered for sale in Bonhams’ Bond Street rooms this month.

Furniture activity in London has been fairly low-key so far this year, but two mid-February furniture sales not only looked a step above the rest but were also fairly similar in their scope. Christie’s South Kensington’s (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) 502-lot sale on February 11 was one of their five annual sales of more select, varied and decorative content.

Christie’s are to hold their first auction in Spain since 1999 this autumn when they offer a sale devoted to Spanish paintings in Madrid on October 6. Although they have maintained an office in Madrid, Christie’s last Spanish auction was five years ago when they held the Bendinat House sale in Mallorca.

There was high excitement at the Cork rooms of Joseph Woodward & Sons (15% buyer’s premium) on February 11 when what was thought to be the earliest surviving painted view of Cork harbour fetched what is known to be the highest auction price ever paid for a painting in the city.

Proving once again that radially-expanding tables are among the most practical and the most coveted pieces of Victorian furniture, the Hereford Rowing Club received an unexpected cash windfall when their often misused clubroom table sold at Brightwells in early February.

Countless numbers of sardine dishes were turned out by the 100 or so potteries who made majolica wares in the final third of the 19th century but for some collectors the mission is to find an example of each.

The title page of Hugh Maccaghwell’s On the Sacrament of Penance which, printed at Louvain in 1618, is recognised as “the first original work by a living author in Irish”. The few works printed in Irish that preceded it were the Bible, liturgical texts or translations of the works of others, but this was one of five works produced in the years 1614-18 at a press operated by the Irish Franciscans at St. Anthony’s in Louvain – the first press to print and promote Irish writing in the vernacular.

THIS Oxfordshire outing at Holloways on 27 January not only boasted a bountiful supply of silver-mounted coconuts but included a great deal of other decorative entries and quality furniture consigned by the same local private vendor. Among these pieces was the sale highlight – a pair of Victorian ‘golden oak’ inverted breakfront library bookcases, well carved with lion’s masks and cartouche-moulded cornices.

IF asked to nominate the subject of a commercial painting by Montague Dawson (1895-1973), most specialists and collectors would think of a clipper ship, preferably an American clipper in full sail on picturesquely choppy, but not too choppy, seas.