Newbury

The highlight of the month’s auction calendar, this remarkable Italian micromosaic and ormolu mounted centre table shot to £250,000 (plus 15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) at Dreweatt Neate of Donnington Priory, Newbury on January 21.

Until recently, only three Italian micromosaic Chronological Rome round tables with ebony and ormolu bases by the renowned craftsman Michelangelo Barberi (1787-1867) were known. One is in London’s Somerset House Gilbert Collection (purchased from Sotheby’s New York in 1980), one is in St Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum and a third is thought to have been commissioned by Baron Broderick, 6th Viscount Midleton (1791-1863) but its whereabouts remains unknown.

RUPERT Toovey launches his huge new saleroom in Sussex in a week, Dreweatt Neate have just completed a major revamp of their Donnington Priory rooms near Newbury and a host of other salerooms around the country have announced new facilities, upgrades and launches. Here we detail some of these changes, which indicate that however concerned many may be about the state of the UK antiques business, there is confidence out there and the determination to prosper through improved service.

Shot by a sniper when aboard HMS Victory at the crowning moment of his career, Admiral Lord Nelson is without doubt Britain’s finest maritime hero. When news of his death, after triumping at the Battle of Trafalgar, reached London George III made the decision to break with tradition and give Nelson a state funeral.

This Chamberlains Worcester yellow ground beaker-shaped vase c.1802, painted with a figure emblematic of Fame and supporting a miniature of Admiral Lord Nelson to commemorate the battle of the Nile, appeared at Law Fine Art on May 22 with an estimate of £4000-6000, having been consigned by a “Middle England” collector.

This marquetry panel, right, was one of the distinguishing features of a much-altered kingwood bonheur du jour which highlighted Dreweatt Neate’s (15 per cent buyer’s premium) furniture and works of art sale on March 27.

TWO well-known organisers, Towy Antiques Fairs and Sue Ede, have joined forces as the Towy Ede Partnership to launch a new programme of fairs. The first date will be the Newbury Antiques Fair, a weekend event to be held at the Newbury Racecourse on June 15 and 16.

BOOKS played a fairly minor part in the first Newbury antiques sale of the year at Dreweatt Neate on 30 January – one that raised in excess of £1.5m, a record for the Berkshire saleroom – but they did get the proceedings under way, and the very first lot in the catalogue, a misbound and now disbound and browned copy of Love in a Village, a comic opera as performed at The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden... showed the way in selling for a double estimate £200.

Since the Craven commodes were sold in London last November there has not been any exceptional English furniture at auction in Britain, but that all changed when Dreweatt Neate offered the remnants of Daisy Fellowes’ Berkshire estate at Donnington Priory on January 30.

The Berkshire auctioneers Dreweatt Neate led the table of provincial auctioneers who were prepared to reveal their turnover for 1999.