Auction Reports

Regarded in their time as examples of the finest cabinet-making rather than simply reproductions, good 19th century French revivalist furniture remains in demand.

Two Victorian stained-glass and leaded window panels entered by the same vendor trebled the estimates in selling to the same UK online bidder at Special Auction Services (17.5% buyer’s premium) on February 5.

Travelling from Glasgow to the south of England courtesy of a commission bid, this Hornby-Dublo train EDG 7 tank goods set, right, went at 10 times the lower estimate at McTear’s (24% buyer’s premium) sale on February 1.

Precisely four months on from a flood inundating its saleroom, Carmarthen auction house Peter Francis (20% buyer’s premium) enjoyed a literal and metaphorical day in the sunshine on February 13.

Following the fall of Louis-Philippe in the 1848 revolution, the French royal sculptor Henri Joseph Francois, Baron de Triqueti (1804-74) was obliged to cast his net further afield for new patrons.

The sale at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (plus 21% buyer’s premium) on January 29 – an event dominated by the multi-estimate performance of a Qianlong mark vase in the Ming taste sold at £460,000 (see ATG No 2378) – also included a hardwood (probably olivewood), bone and mother-of-pearl inlaid model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

Billed as a private London collection, the February 5 sale at Chiswick Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) betrayed a single owner with a good eye and wide-ranging enthusiasms.

The best Egyptian antiquities now engender much more than mere scholastic fervour but, for the most part, humbler objects remain eminently affordable.

Two single-owner collections built up over lifetimes were well received at Canterbury Auction Galleries (20% buyer’s premium) on February 5-6.

Good times at the Oxford rooms of Mallams (20% buyer’s premium), when all bar one of 56 clocks got away almost all going comfortably above estimates.

Out-sold by the 100-times estimate £22,000 Japanese vase featured on last week’s News pages (ATG No 2380), this gold and silver-gilt chalice, right, offered at Lytham St Annes auction house Gerrards (18% buyer’s premium) on February 7 was a more predictable five-figure star.

Three lots selling for multi-estimate sums at regional auctions in the UK including a Staffordshire slipware honey pot from c.1700 that drew demand at Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury.

With the great country house contents sales of the past now largely a distant memory, single-owner collection sales have become the next-best thing.

Collectables untouched by Byronmania but selling well at the Harold Ward auction at Mellors & Kirk on February 6-7 included a 19th century ‘Grand Tour’ Italian alabaster model of the Piazza del Duomo, Pisa, and a gold-mounted malacca walking cane engraved to the pommel with the 1816-37 royal arms.

A very different residence to Harold Ward’s Manthorpe House (see Mellors & Kirk story in Auction Reports this edition) supplied the very different contents to the 600-lot single-owner collection, white-glove sale held at Bellmans’ (22% buyer’s premium) Billingshurst saleroom on February 9.

After re-booting the moribund firm of Hutchinson Scott (20% buyer’s premium) in 2016, former dealers Michael Scott and Paul Hodson have now bought their premises at Embsay Mill at Skipton.

Given a surprising £200-300 estimate, a George IV brass and glass carriage clock was one of the stars of McTear’s (23% buyer’s premium) Glasgow sale on February 1.

Sworders offers late 19th and 20th century styles reflecting the period zeitgeist.

Two fine examples of scrimshaw were eagerly contested at the David Duggleby (21% buyer’s premium inc VAT) Scarborough auction of maritime antiques and instruments.

Offered to a packed and enthusiastic saleroom, the 750-lot silver sale at Lawrences (22% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne was divided into three parts: an extraordinary reference library, a broad sweep of the market for British and Continental white metal and a niche single-owner collection. It brought two-and-three-quarter cheers.