Auctions

THERE were few out and out stars at the Amersham Buckinghamshire rooms on 6 June but the buyers were keen enough to support the auctioneers’ contention that, with more widespread holidays and the Internet, it is only vendors who are cautious about midsummer sales.

GOOD house contents sales, now a rarity in Britain, still crop up in Ireland and although the latest was a reversal of the usual reason for such events – the owners were actually moving back into the house rather than leaving it – Lissadell in Co. Sligo followed the familiar pattern of widespread general interest in pieces from ‘the big house’ and enthusiasm among people wishing to buy fresh-to- market pieces.

AN example of every Hornby Dublo model from 1948 until the Liverpool factory went out of business in 1964 will come for up auction as a single collection at Barry Potter Auctions in Rugby on July 18.

GERMANY: Round about the year 286AD times were very interesting in Britannia. Some small documents of this small and little known facet of British history appeared in the Lanz (15% buyer’s premium) sale in Munich on May 27.

A zeal for collecting in an age of double glazing has created a strong market for pottery window rests, which have been freed from the domestic drudgery of keeping sash windows open and elevated to the mantelpiece as decorative works of art in their own rights.

With their lively if somewhat comic subject matter, these so-called ‘Scotsmen’ famille rose plates, 18th century, always receive a warm welcome. But the comic depiction of this kilted couple of the 42nd Foot Regiment belies the fate that lay in store for them.

Concerns that turmoil in the world’s stock markets would spill over into London’s June round of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary sales proved to be largely unfounded.

Christie’s King Street, may not have had their best ever sale but they did have the week’s most admired snuff bottle: a black and white jade inscribed example, signed Shixiang, 1740-1850.

Sotheby’s Olympia clinched the week’s loftiest price for an Asian work when a mighty £480,000 was placed by a Japanese telephone buyer probably bidding against the reserve for a complete set of Ando Hiroshige’s (1797-1858) 120 woodblock prints: The One Hundred Famous Views of Edo.

A veteran of golfing sales, Bob Gowland has been involved in this specialist field for the past 30 years. With stints at both Phillips and Bonhams under his belt, he has been acting independently for the past 18 months as Bob Gowland International Golf Auctions.

Princess Soraya’s father Khalil lived for much of the 1920s in Germany, where he married Soraya’s Russian-born mother Eva Karl in 1926. Soraya was born in Ispahan in 1932, but lived in Germany until she was five, returning to Iran in 1937.

This quartet of Meissen white figures from Augustus the Strong’s Japanese Palace was a centrepiece of the June 13 evening sale from Longleat, contributing £2.9m to the overall total.

Following hot on the heals of a gold cased pocket watch which took £25,000 Sherborne auctioneers Charterhouse (15% buyer’s premium) found further horological success on May 31 with this early 19th century carriage clock, right.

One of the more curious sections of Sotheby’s sale at Billingshurst on 21-22 May was devoted to natural, rather than man-made statuary.

Brown furniture has proved hard to shift at auction in recent months but the success of this George I burr walnut chest on stand offered at the Bristol Auction Rooms on June 18 may signal the tide is turning.

Butterfields, the San Francisco auctioneers, who made the national press in March following the controversy over a Malcolm X archive, were front page material again in June following the sale of the only surviving parts from the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima.

MUSIC makers, from Jaques Frères musical boxes to Würlitzer juke boxes, make their sometimes surprising mark at auction but although this German orchestrion, right was one of the most unusual pieces to come up at any English rooms, Market Harborough auctioneers Gildings (12.5% buyer’s premium) recognised it as a major money maker in their May 28 sale.

Shanklin Auction Rooms have taken what they believe to be a record price for a Worcester teapot. The Isle of Wight auctioneers expected a bid of around £1000 for the rare c.1760, 5in (13cm), first period Worcester pot (pictured) and were amazed to see it knocked down to a London dealer for £11,000 (plus 10 per cent buyer’s premium).

IRISH auctioneers have long been adamant that Irish pictures sell better in Ireland and certainly the 71 per cent sold by lot achieved at James Adam (15% buyer’s premium) in Dublin on May 29 was only just shy of the 76 per cent by lot selling rate taken at Christie’s Irish sale in London on May 17.

THIS most unusual looking beast is expected to be the star lot at a sale to be held in Paris on July 4 at a most unusual location, the pagoda-like Maison Chinoise, rue de Courcelles, Paris 8.