This walnut table by the English architect-designer Edward William Godwin (1833-86), was spotted by Jeremy Lamond from Shrewsbury-based Halls during a routine valuation visit to a house in the Welshpool area.
Another of these Anglo-Japanese tables - sometimes referred to
as Smallhythe tables after the example in the Ellen Terry Museum at
Smallhythe Place, Kent - is pictured on the front cover of Susan
Soros'The Secular Furniture of E.W. Godwin.
During conversation with the owners, it emerged that this table
had been thrown on a skip only to be later retrieved. A leg had
been broken and repaired. Offered for sale on May 21, it was
contested by three telephones before a London specialist secured it
at £40,000 (plus 17.5% buyer's premium).
The price was comfortably within a very realistic £30,000-50,000
estimate. Given its condition few had expected it to match the
£80,000 generated by another example with the same distinctive
brass fittings estimated at just £150-200 at Simon Chorley of
Southam, near Cheltenham in November 2006.
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