Auction Reports

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The names of two 17th century makers took these two lantern clocks way above estimates at Sworders’ (23% buyer’s premium) sale at Stansted Mountitchet. Both were from the Barbara Holliday collection that majored on Modern British art (see Art Market, ATG No 2377).

This late 19th century cameo glass vase by the highly collectable Stourbridge maker Stevens & Williams was the outstanding offering among the 195 lots at Michael J Bowman’s (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale at Chudleigh on January 19.

With vendors now well adjusted to realities of the market, the demand for standard Georgian furniture is unspectacular but steady.

The best meat platters have weathered the dip in fortunes of Staffordshire pearlware. The Durham Ox series remains a favourite pattern and there was no shortage of northern private bidders when two c.1820 examples were offered at Tennants’ (20% buyer’s premium) Leyburn sale on January 12.

A set of four Cotswold School Arts & Crafts wall sconces, one shown below, was catalogued by Moore Allen & Innocent (20% buyer’s premium) as in the Wild Strawberry pattern and in the manner of Ernest Gimson (1864-1919).

Topped by the 17th century Dutch bottles at £30,000 (see ATG No 2375), the year’s first sale at Hannam’s (23% buyer’s premium) had other treasures among the 2000 lots including the French bronze figural torchères, right.

If the Battle of Britain is your collecting field, then the sale of a Kent collection held in late 2018 would have been a major draw.

The continued interest in Victorian music boxes in this age of Spotify and streaming was evident when three were among the 1500-lot sale held by Unique Auctions (17.5% buyer’s premium) to launch the new year.

The traditionally ‘dead’ period between Christmas and New Year was enlivened by the December 28 sale at Wotton Auction Rooms (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Gloucestershire – to the extent that more than 20,000 people suffering withdrawal symptoms worldwide viewed it online and 1360 of them registered to bid.

Historically the first major sale of the year, the January ‘furniture’ auction at Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) turns eyes towards Salisbury for evidence of what the next 12 months will bring.

Dated c.1930, this Lenci figure of a girl in fashionable culottes, below, was estimated at £200-300 at Adam Partridge (20% buyer’s premium) but appears to have been spotted as one of the rarer products of the Turin factory.

The British Art Pottery sales at Woolley & Wallis have posted some remarkable sums for single William De Morgan tiles.

Among the first women potters recognised by the public as individual designers worthy of collecting were Hannah Barlow (1851-1916) and her sister Florence. The first women artists at Doulton’s Lambeth factory, they joined in 1871 and 1873 respectively.