Salisbury

Woolley & Wallis is currently selling across a number of sales a cache of items from the family of HG Murphy (1884-1939), whose Falcon Studio produced some of the finest English silver of the inter-war era.

Nearly 500 lots of Modern British and 20th century art went under the hammer at Woolley & Wallis (25/12% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury to notch up a total of £535,000 with three-quarters sold.

Country house car boots held in aid of charities are part of the summer season.

Results for Kakiemon and Meiji metalwork underline stronger market for Asia’s ‘second tier’

A speciality for collectors of silver wine labels are the enamelled examples produced in Battersea in the 18th century.

Another spring sale, another impressive total. But perhaps what distinguished the silver sale held at Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) was that the £750,000 total was mainly built up by affordable collectors’ items.

An essential of genteel Georgian life, silver apple corers with their simple elegance were once much prized by collectors. However, a collection of nine early 19th century examples offered at Woolley & Wallis on April 24-25 met a mixed reception, with only five getting away.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Estimated at £10,000-15,000, a pair of James II silver candlesticks sold at £62,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) at the Woolley & Wallis silver sale in Salisbury.

A gripping story which, until recently, has remained shrouded in mystery, provides the backdrop for an intriguing test of the market for SAS medals.

Given current market conditions, watercolours can often be ‘the poor relation’ when it comes to mixed category picture sales. But examples benefitting from fine condition, colouring or execution, or a combination of these key factors, can lead to a very different outcome.

Three more modestly valued works drawing attention at Woolley & Wallis

A painting of Farnham High Street from 1794 by a little-known artist fetched a not-so-little £8500 at Woolley & Wallis.

Marines and seascapes were a strong feature of Woolley & Wallis’ latest picture sale and, while there were plenty of affordable works on offer (see separate story), the sale was led by one of the larger works by a well-recognised name.

The 96-lot section of studio pottery offered at Woolley & Wallis’ (25% buyer’s premium) wide-ranging ceramics sale at Salisbury on March 21 included a private collection of the work of David Leach (1911-2005) and Walter Keeler (b.1942).

An American private collector bid £15,000 for a rare Clarice Cliff figure group at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury.

It was in keeping with a Salisbury sale dominated by the remarkable £460,000 bid for a teapot made at Cain Hoy, South Carolina by John Bartlam c.1765 (see ATG 2331), that the same Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) ceramics sale included a group of three rare enamel boxes made for the American market.

When it comes to the business of selling middle-market collections, the big London salerooms are particularly adept at cherry-picking the best and rejecting the rest.

A hitherto unrecorded teapot attributed to a pioneering North American porcelain factory sold last week for a remarkable £460,000 (plus premium) at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury.