Auction Reports

An unusual offering at the Chudleigh rooms of Michael J Bowman (17.5% buyer’s premium) was this 3ft 11in (1.19m) long Bokhara pattern runner.

More reliable today than they ever were in their lifetime, the male line of the Stuarts attracted the familiar devoted following at the annual Scottish Silver & Applied Arts sale at Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium).

Benefiting from the continuing fashion for late 19th century novelty mantel clocks, a gilt-brass and steel example by Guilmet made the running at Peter Wilson (22% buyer’s premium) of Nantwich.

The name Marklin always suggested an O gauge loco and tender offered at Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) would find a buyer against a £200-300 estimate but there was a considerably greater head of steam when international collectors looked closer.

In stark contrast to the elegant dolls’ houses which took the higher bids at a recent auction (ATG No 2403), a shillelagh was evidence of violence and tragedy in 19th century Ireland.

Highlights at Roseberys (25% buyer’s premium) brought more than the usual sense of trans-centuries time travel experienced at such auctions of 500 disparate lots.

Bowl and chicken cup impress in Suffolk and Berkshire salerooms.

‘One-of-a-kind’ tubelined charger by Staffordshire ceramicist brings £3300 on local soil.

In this group of predominantly Victorian ceramics beloware two 18th century pieces: a typical polychrome delft plate of modest value and a far more commercial early English toby jug.

Clock produced by Englishman influential in French horology impresses in Norfolk auction.

Although catalogued as ‘Continental’, this mid-19th century porcelain figure of a seated semi-nude ballet dancer below carries impressed marks for the factory established by the English entrepreneur Francis Gardner in the town of Verbilki near Moscow in 1766.

From the height of almost impractical luxury to a simple piece of homespun craftsmanship, the full creative range of sewing accessories was on offer at the summer sale of specialist auction house Bleasdales (20% buyer’s premium).

The interior of this 15in (38cm) mid-19th century Chinese gilt and black lacquer workbox includes two layers of 15 small interlocking boxes. The central cruciform-shaped box has a pin cushion incorporated in the lid.

Better by a distance than nine similar items, a mid-17th century wainscot chair offered by Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) in Crewkerne demonstrated the yawning price gap between the acceptable and the desirable in the early oak market.

Not always predicted but overwhelming when it comes, big-money Russian interest sent a bronze equine group soaring at Dawson’s (23% buyer’s premium) in Maidenhead.

Private buying dominated as Essex saleroom Sworders (23% buyer’s premium) offered the selected contents of a Cotswold manor house.

Catalogued together with an incomplete silver propelling pencil with a bloodstone terminal, a silver Art Deco pocket lighter with a timepiece sold at £5200 (estimate £100-200) at Amersham Auction Rooms (17.5% buyer’s premium) on July 11.

The personal enthusiasm of John Braund of Turpin’s Antiques, who died in January aged 90, was early oak and associated metalware.

A lot comprising 31 posters plugging top groups and festivals from 1969-72 was the major hit at Bellmans’ (22% buyer’s premium) Photographs, Posters and Prints sale.

The market for European ‘decorative arts’ – the wealth of late 19th and early 20th century ceramics, metalwork and design – has been in a constant state of flux since it first entered mainstream collecting in the late 1960s. As tastes evolve, so does pricing.