Furniture

UK: IT MAY have been a mahogany wine cooler, but did its massive proportions and one-time residence in St Alban’s Cathedral suggest that it had formerly been used as a christening bath for babies rather than for beverages?

UK: TWO from a set of five Chippendale mahogany dining chairs sold for £120,000 (plus 15 per cent premium) as part of the sale of objects from Hever Castle, Kent conducted ‘on the premises’ by Weller King on November 9.

UK: THE autumn sale season got properly under way last week with three sales in the ‘Country House’ vein. Offered from Vost’s at Tattersalls in Newmarket on September 16 were the contents of Badlington Manor, the property of the retired stock broker Mr Keith Heathcote.

UK: DESPITE a catalogue entry which cited this walnut, rosewood and marquetry centre table, 3ft 1in (95cm) wide, as William and Mary and later and an estimate of £2500-3500, it was competed to £43,000 plus 15 per cent premium at Sotheby’s South in Billingshurst on July 20.

UK: AT THE first sale in their new Norcote saleroom near Cirencester on July 9, Moore Allen & Innocent sold this distinctive walnut leather-seated early 18th century armchair for £21,000 (plus 10 per cent buyer’s premium).

UK: THE FINAL lot offered by Cumbrian auctioneers Penrith Farmers’ & Kidd on June 30 was this scarce piece of English oak vernacular furniture – a 17th century enclosed chest, 3ft 71/2in (1.1m) wide, with moulded panel doors which open to reveal four plain long drawers.

UK: THIS rather battered French chair that the family dog used to curl up in had buyers leaping off their seats at Christie’s sale on June 23 when it more than doubled hopes, selling at £350,000.

THE first of the new-format International Sales at Sotheby’s Sussex rooms could hardly have got off to a more successful launch – not only a premium-inclusive total of £750,000 from the 513 lots of ceramics and furniture on day one but also the highest price ever recorded for furniture at Billingshurst, when they sold at more than five times high estimate to a London dealer for £62,000 plus 15/10 per cent buyer’s premium.

UK: A DOG had bitten one of the legs... and possibly worse, and two parts were knocked off by individuals at the viewing, but neither of these detractions put off Smith the Rink of Harrogate from bidding £13,400 plus 12 per cent buyer’s premium for this George III tea-table at Patrick Cheyne of Altrincham on May 8. Why?

ARCHITECTURAL specialists Thomas William Gaze & Son (7.5 per cent buyer’s premium) included these 19th century decorative wallbricks, right, at their sale in Diss, Norfolk April 17.

UK: WEST Country auctioneers Lawrence’s of Crewkerne posted a house record on May 6 when they sold this pair of George III marquetry inlaid rosewood and satinwood card tables to a New York dealer for £150,000 (plus 12.75 per cent premium).

UK: THIS review of two of the higher-profile sales conducted by Bonhams from their Northern foothold in Stockport begins (in reverse chronological order) with an April catalogue comprising the contents of two Yorkshire manor houses.

UK: A George III Chippendale style giltwood wall mirror with a swan neck and cartouche pediment, 7ft 10in high by 3ft 5in wide (2.39 x 1.04m) was consigned to Gorringes’ sale in Lewes on April 21 with expectations of £2500-3000 and sold to a telephone bidder at £22,000 plus 10 per cent premium.

UK: A ROUTINE dispersal at the Ladybank salerooms was led by a Georgian oak lowboy of typical composition which attracted £13504.

UK: ALTHOUGH there were no real star entries at this monthly dispersal, around 727 lots managed to generate a total at £120,00 boosted by a silver section and some pieces of local interest.

Carolean court cupboard emerges from Cumbrian chicken shed UK: EARLY oak furniture attracted the higher prices at the quarterly sale ‘Antiques and Collectors’ sale at the Skirsgill Salerooms in Cumbria where the most valuable lot was a James II one-piece oak court cupboard.

UK: AT this two-day, 1112-lot sale in East Sussex auctioneer Mark Hudson was pleased to see a broader buying base than has been the case at many rooms of late saying: “Middle-range furniture featured at the beginning of the furniture section was easy to sell.”

UK: IT HAD been forged as ecclesiastical strongchests for church treasure in medieval Europe and wrought in the form of bedsteads in 17th century Italian villas, but it was only with the rise of industrial manufacture and the growth of the middle-classes in the 19th century that iron became a commonplace element in the gardens, and then the houses of the British gentry.

UK: IS this Gothic revival red walnut foldover card table, left, another rediscovered work by the great William Burges?

UK: SIGNED cabinet photographs of Oscar and Constance Wilde flank one of their younger son, Vivian, which has been inscribed and dated 1891 to the reverse – although the well known portrait of Oscar is known to date from 1889.