Auction Reports

Jade remains ever-popular in the Chinese art field, although the market has become selective.

Renowned as he is for promoting – indeed, creating – markets in art, advertising mogul Charles Saatchi appears to have over-estimated the taxidermy market when bidding at the sale of the Will Fisher Collection at Christie’s South Kensington in February 2012.

Beloved of TV antiques programmes and of bidders knowing the lots are absolutely fresh to market, there are few phrases to stir the blood at an auction as much as ‘from the attic’.

Which sector of the traditional antiques trade has been on an unbroken, record-busting rise since the early years of the century?

Qualifying for the oxymoronic term ‘giant carriage clock’, the 8in (20cm) tall gilt-metal carriage clock shown below had the quality to trigger a bidding battle between specialists at Chilcotts (19.5% buyer’s premium) in Honiton on December 2.

The most desirable of all porcelain plaques produced by KPM in the late 19th century are those that leave little to the imagination. However, evidence of their continued popularity across many different subject matters came in the form of this example below.

Where scientific instruments are concerned, recent highlights such as Albert Einstein’s telescope or a working example of the Apple 1 computer could have been selected. However, we begin instead with the improved, four-rotor Enigma cipher machine.

Overall, a Voices of the 20th Century sale held by Bonhams New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on December 6 was rather disappointing, with only 100 of 264 lots sold (and only six of the 55 Russian lots). However, among the more curious entries was the ‘Paradummy’ pictured below.

While English ceramics feature in most provincial sales, November provided four auctions where the market could be looked at overall.

A full saleroom and a sell-out are not necessarily features you associate with traditional fields such as English drinking glasses but there are always exceptions.

Engraved 18th century glassware opened the sale at Woolley & Wallis (22% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury on October 18.

If, as generally accepted, the tri-annual fine art sales at Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) can be regarded as something of a barometer of the middle market, the outlook following the autumn sale on November 18 appears rather more steady than the Brexit nervousness talked about elsewhere in the economy.

In a category of its own – and bringing one of the highest prices at the Tennants autumn sale – was a brass, tooth-edge dog collar engraved Rt. Honble Lord Byron.

Two big names dominated the 20th Century Decorative Arts sale held by Gildings (15% buyer’s premium) in Market Harborough on November 7.

Sometimes described as the wireless which saved Ekco, the radical Bakelite circular Model AD65 radio designed by Wells Coates in the 1933 sold in its tens of thousands. It restored the fortunes of the Essex factory after a disastrous fire in 1932.

Two examples of the 19th century European craftsmen’s love of mother of pearl shone at Hannam’s (20% buyer’s premium) sale at Selborne on November 15.

Founded three years ago, the Whitchurch, Shropshire, firm of Trevanion & Dean (19% buyer’s premium) enjoyed its best sale so far when the 950 lots, ranging from Renaissance art to contemporary glass, totalled £250,000 on November 18.

The material connected with William Butler Yeats in the family home of his son, the late Senator Michael, has proved as controversial – and profitable – as the great man’s writing itself.

A week before Fonsie Mealy’s William Butler Yeats sale, the auctioneers’ neighbours, kith and rivals Mealy’s (20% buyer’s premium) had a couple of eyecatchers in its November 8 sale at Castlecomer.

Entered into the October 21 sale at Bishop & Miller (18% buyer’s premium) by a Suffolk vendor thinning out his collection, these carved boxwood nutcrackers, right, made an immediate impact on bidders at the Stowmarket rooms.