Furniture

This c.1690 marquetry cabinet on stand in the manner of the Anglo-Dutch maker Gerrit Jensen (d.1715) sold for £35,000 at the latest sale at Brightwells of Leominster.

Halls’ director of fine art Jeremy Lamond has been leading a social media campaign to promote the virtues of antique furniture.

COMMENT: Jeremy Lamond, fine art director of Halls of Shrewsbury, sets out his ten-point plan for reviving the fortunes of brown furniture

The Antique Collectors’ Club’s Annual Furniture Index (AFI) registered its seventh successive fall in 2014. However, only two categories depreciated substantially.

Exceptional pieces of antique furniture play by quite different rules to the more standard items when it comes to price performance.

A fine quality mahogany commode with a blue-chip provenance proved the star lot at Lawrences’ latest furniture auction in Crewkerne.

Leading Lyon & Turnbull’s latest furniture and works of art sale in Edinburgh was this fine George II mahogany breakfront bookcase c.1755 in the manner of Vile and Cobb.

A walnut secretaire cabinet by Peter Waals (1870-1937) has sold for £34,000 at Bearne Hampton & Littlewood in Exeter.

This George III neoclassical style mahogany serving table was entered for sale at Nesbits in Southsea from a church in Portsea to raise funds for repairs. It is thought the table was given to them to replace the altar table destroyed by bomb damage.

This Egyptian revival medal cabinet, considered one of the finest pieces of French Empire furniture in Britain, has been ‘saved for the nation’ after a campaign by the Victoria & Albert Museum was successful in raising £534,000.

Britain may not have the same high-profile post-War design tradition as countries like Italy or Denmark (and its products do not command such high prices in the marketplace) but the period was a fertile and creative one which saw a number of talented designers and manufacturers produce a distinctive look.

Chichester firm Stride & Sons included two fine Georgian miniatures in their latest sale.

A recent sale at Bamfords of Derby included two outstanding pieces of Chippendale period rococo furniture, both consigned by a local lady who had inherited them from her father.

Born near Loughborough into a family of tenant farmers, Robert Bakewell (1725-95) is recognised as an important figure in the Agricultural Revolution – a pioneer of the grassland irrigation he saw while travelling in Europe and an innovator in the selective breeding of livestock.

An Arts & Crafts dining room suite made by the prominent Manchester designer Edgar Wood has sold for £42,000 at Gardiner Houlgate of Corsham near Bath.

Mossgreen will be offering one of the most talked about items of the year at their forthcoming sale in Melbourne. The auction will feature this elaborately carved and inlaid cradle made for Princess Helena, Queen Victoria’s fifth child.

Mystery surrounds the origin of a maple cabinet designed by Edward William Godwin and painted by James Abbott McNeill Whistler which has been bought by National Museums Scotland (NMS).

This 21in (54cm) wide ‘Indo-Portuguese’ ivory inlaid hardwood fall front cabinet sold for an extraordinary £43,000 at Lawrences of Crewkerne.

Located in the village of Kimacolm, close to the Firth of Clyde and 20 miles west of Glasgow, is Windyhill, one of only three houses built by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

The uncompromising Danish furniture designer/carpenter Peder Moos (1906-91) carefully hand-crafted virtually all his distinctive furniture.