“Arts & Crafts furniture, particularly Cotswolds School, is in demand but, for high prices, names and provenance are everything, ” he added.
At Sworders, Cotswolds royalty was well represented, including Ernest Gimson, who designed the walnut secretaire chest which quadrupled the estimate at £42,000 and the cedar linen press, probably made by Peter Waals, which went to the UK trade at a five-times-estimate £22,000 (ATG No 2278).
By comparison, furniture designed by Gordon Russell (1892-1980), whose career stretched far beyond his Cotswolds beginnings, can appear reasonable.
A 3ft 4in (1.01m) wide oak chest of drawers with panelled sides, chamfered octagonal pilasters, and vertical ebonised handles was from the 1924 Stow range and was labelled beneath one of the cedar-lined drawers for a favoured cabinetmaker A.H. Allaway…14/4/26.
Estimated at £2000- 3000, it sold to a collector at £4000.
Robert ‘Mouseman’ Thompson has his own following and best of the 20 pieces at Sworders was a pre-war 4ft 6in (1.38m) tall cabinet which a collector took at a doubleestimate £5800.
An Aesthetic period ebonised and amboyna-inlaid credenza, stamped 25039 Lamb Manchester for the highly respected makers, was a marginally anachronistic piece in a 20th century design sale being c.1875. Nevertheless, the 6ft 10in (2.04m) wide piece (pictured above), with a glazed and mirror-back cupboard flanked by two cupboards, more than justified its place. Estimated at £500-700, it was a private buy at £3100.
