Furniture

UK: The name of Gillows, never unfashionable, is going through one of its periodic high points and this was more than confirmed at the March 1 sale held at Leamington Spa by Locke & England (121/2% buyer’s premium) when they could offer the mid-19th century amboyna and gilt embellished centre table.

UK: Wellington chests remain a steady favourite in the middle-price range of furniture, particularly when they come as a pair as at this Bedford sale.

UK: “I HAVE never understood why stools make so much money,” said one dealer after the seeing this late 19th century Chippendale-style pair, left, go under the hammer at Phillips Knowle sale. “They never seem to be used for anything but piling up newspapers in sitting rooms.”

UK: A rather tatty, plain appearance warranted an estimate of £800-1200 on this George III architect’s table at Neales’ sale in Nottingham on February 23, but its virginal structure encouraged interest from the highest reaches of the London trade.

UK: THE 105-lot furniture section harboured all the best prices in the first of Maxwells, Wilmslow, quarterly Antiques and Collectors Items auctions of the year.

UK: A CLUSTER of four-figure furniture entries at Brighton saw the biggest price reserved for a set of eight Regency mahogany dining chairs.

UK: FURNITURE provided the bread and butter at Exeter in January where, as so often, dependable sets of dining chairs, tables, linen presses and longcase clocks brought the best bids.

UK: LONDON was far from bereft of carpet auctions in January and February with all the major salerooms holding auctions.

UK: THAT pedestal partners’ desks have become the most in-demand of writing furniture has been obvious for some time – their rise has been matched by the decline of computer-incompatible davenports – but even so this mid-19th century example, offered at the Abergavenny rooms of J. Straker, Chadwick & Sons (6 per cent buyer’s premium) on February 9 achieved a notable price.

UK: THE 122-lot furniture section at this Glasgow general sale was something of a double-edged claymore supplying, as it did, the biggest prices as well as the most casualties.

American connection revolutionises a jug’s prospects UK: LOOKING at current trends in the furniture market, auctioneer Patrick Toynbee remarked on the reluctance among buyers for “run of the mill” pieces, with the preference now being for high-quality attractive pieces.

UK: THERE was no doubting the piece that drew major buyers to this event at St Barnabas Church hall – the flamboyant early 19th century heraldic Italian table.

UK: THE scarcity of good-quality, untouched country furniture, even in such rich fields as Oxfordshire, and the increasingly selective attitude of bidders – becoming “more selective by the sale”, according to Mallams auctioneer Ben Lloyd – are causes of concern for auctioneers across the country.

UK: Emblazoned with the full armorial of the Strutt and Galton families, this early 19th century Italian marble and pietra dura table stole the limelight at Short, Graham & Co.’s sale in Gloucester on January 23.

UK: IT WAS standard case furniture: tables and other useful pieces of mahogany that made much of the running in the 224-lot sale of furniture held by Christie's South Kensington on January 10, topped at £12,000 by a good Georgian library bookcase from a private deceased estate.

UK: EARLY oak remains one of the most selective markets but when a piece is right, like this 17th century dresser base, right, offered at the Cheltenham branch of Mallams (15 per cent buyer’s premium) on December 14, it will bring specialists running.

UK: To some people it may just be another brown wardrobe, c.1900, with a bit of fancy moulding, mounting and carving, but to players of the game called golf it is a precious, possibly unique, artefact that speaks fondly of an enduring obsession.

UK: A SUBSTANTIAL offering of furniture, most of it 19th century and brown, received a mixed response from the Scottish and North of England trade at the last Phillips sale in Edinburgh before Christmas.

UK: Early walnut is all about colour and choice of veneer, and this Queen Anne bureau bookcase 7ft 10in high by 5ft 9in wide (2.38 x 1.06) scored highly on both counts at the Partridge Green salerooms of Rupert Toovey on January 19.

FRANCE: A LOUIS XVI mahogany gueridon with three scrolled legs, stamped Molitor, sold to the French trade in Dijon on December 9 for Fr1.6m (£150,000), five times estimate – even though the table was in indifferent condition, having been recovered from a local attic.