Derbyshire

A pair of trademark gouaches by Mary Fedden (1915-2012) drew strong bidding at auctions in Derbyshire and Essex.

It is a year now since Jim Spencer joined Derbyshire saleroom Hansons (20% buyer’s premium), tasked with building up the book sections of their sales.

Antique pine furniture has many followers who buy it battered and cheap and simply ‘tart it up’ with an invariably low degree of skill and taste to sell on.

An iconographic gold ring – perhaps once belonging to a bishop or senior member of the clergy in the Yorkshire area – sold for £7100 at Hansons (20% buyer’s premium) in Etwall, Derbyshire.

Promoted as including the contents from a Derbyshire country home, the three-day pre-Christmas sale at Hansons (17.5% buyer’s premium) was more notable for two unusual collections and pieces which came in after a valuation day.

Not only is industrious Derbyshire auction house Hansons about to launch its new saleroom down south, but it is also starting a new sale format building on the popular tribal art collecting scene.

Employing a translation made in the 16th century by William Adlington, the 1924 Ashendene edition of The Golden Asse of Lucius Apuleius was printed in the press’ proprietary Subiaco type in an edition of just 124 copies, of which 16 were printed on vellum but only 13 offered for sale.

Not many new faces at salerooms can include among their experience “a trained horse whisperer”.

Dominated by two lots of Chinese porcelain, the September 28-30 sale at Hansons (17.5% buyer’s premium) also included eight Royal Worcester pieces by George Owen (1845-1917) who was inspired by the Orient to produce his trademark reticulated wares.

Among the most coveted of all Martinware is the ‘Wally’ bird. These quirky and grotesque jars (really caricatures of people in Victorian London), were produced from the early 1880s onwards and were named after their maker Robert Wallace Martin, one of four brothers who ran the famous British pottery.

Hansons Auctioneers in Etwall, Derbyshire sold a Yongzheng (1723-35) mark and period dish for £230,000 (plus premium) on September 29.