Furniture

The perennial and international popularity of the radially expanding dining table was underlined in South Africa when Stephan Welz & Co (in association with Sotheby’s) sold this William IV circular extending dining table by Johnstone, Jupe and Co for R950,000 (£84,820), plus 10 per cent premium, in Cape Town on March 30.

WHEN valuing a piece of furniture in the clutter of a client’s poorly lit home, quality can be difficult to gauge. Like most auction house specialists, James Lees, at Banbury-based Holloways (15% buyer’s premium) admits there have been times he has subsequently doubted his initial appraisals.

THERE was an encouraging take-up for Victorian and Georgian furniture in Byrne's (15% buyer's premium) 623-lot March 10 outing, with buyers found for the more standard fare as well as for the better lots. “We had more than our fair share of Victorian mahogany triple wardrobes but most sold to a mixture of private buyers and the trade,” said Byrne’s specialist Adrian Byrne.

DEMAND for good-quality, period stools continues unabated and one led Mervyn Carey's (10% buyer's premium) February 25 506-lot Kent outing. A Queen Anne walnut example, with drop-in, upholstered seat and scrolled cabriole legs, it sold at £3200, while a slightly lesser quality George I walnut stool, also with cabriole legs, managed a winning £950.

QUALITY, rarity, condition, provenance and fashion all have a bearing on auction prices, but perhaps the most difficult criterion for any specialist to value is the appeal of an object’s quirkiness.

OF the 830 lots offered in Fieldings (12.5% buyer's premium) February 28 sale, a painting provided the highest price but a chair the biggest surprise.

FURNITURE historian Bill Cotton and the Cotswold Antique Dealers Association (CADA) are among those participating in Chairs 2004, the first international chairmakers’ symposium. The new event will be held at the National Arboretum at Westonbirt, Tetbury from May 1-3.

THE strength of this Bearne’s (15/10% buyer's premium) March 2 & 3 Devon outing lay in the 72-lot furniture section, although the fairly routine ceramic selection was also notable for a high take-up by lot and some healthy prices. What turned out to be the two star furniture lots were given cautious catalogue entries and estimates which reflected a knowledge of the current wariness among specialists about the numbers of altered, or overly restored, pieces of furniture peppering the market.

The 20in (52cm) high dinanderie vase by Jean Dunand, pictured, right, with original black patina and sleek Art Deco outlines belying its early date of 1913, zoomed to €60,000 (£40,000), five times the estimate, at the Tajan (20.33% buyer’s premium) sale of 20th century decorative arts on March 4.

WEEKLY antique valuation days at their recently opened estate agency in Welshpool have begun to pay dividends for Shrewsbury-based auctioneers Halls (15% buyer's premium), and specialist Jeremy Lamond hopes that the firm’s presence there will help broaden their Welsh client base.

THE market for 19th century mahogany furniture remains, as Gloucestershire auctioneer Martin Lambert observed after Taylor & Fletcher, Humberts (10% buyer's premium) successful 455-lot mixed February 24 sale, extremely selective. But that is not a euphemism for moribund.

KIDSON-Trigg (15% buyer's premium) reported a healthy turnout for their 725-lot February 26 sale with steady interest for collectable ceramics such as Beswick and the better-quality furniture attracting a mixture of local and UK private and trade buyers.

BUYERS may have been thin on the ground for the more routine furniture in this 712-lot Crow's, Dorking (10% buyer's premium) sale on February 25, but the four telephone lines booked for a Georgian Chippendale rectangular tilt-top occasional table ensured this would be a hotly contested entry.

ARE there any corners of Britain where the trade can enjoy an old-fashioned auction without the intrusion of confident private buyers? If so, Abergavenny is no longer one of them.

THE final 130 or so offerings in Abbotts (10% buyer's premium) 675-lot Suffolk sale on March 10 showed that good examples of standard late Georgian and Victorian furniture can still find buyers if the price is right.

HELPED by both the input of new collectors and the appearance on the market of some good pieces, Troika pottery certainly experienced renewed interest in 2003.

Setting a new house record at Carmarthen auctioneers Peter Francis on March 9 was this 18th century Coromandel Coast marquetry inlaid padouk, ebony and ivory chest of five short and two long drawers.

THE first day of a Belle Epoque sale held by Doyle of New York on February 25-26 awoke what one might, with greater reason than most, term a sleeper – the remarkable piece of furniture, catalogued as “An Italian Baroque style Mahogany Bed”, seen right. The bed was part of the Woodruff collection, comprising stock from a former Hollywood business that from 1922-60 was a popular rental source for the film studios, but stock that for the past 40 or more years has been in storage in Oklahoma.

INITIAL arguments in the £1.75m High Court dispute between Christie’s and Taylor Lynne Thomson over a pair of porphyry urns indicate that both parties intend to fight their corner vigorously.

AT 1620 lots, the January 27-28 sale held by Keys (10% buyer’s premium) at Aylsham, was a little smaller than many of the Norfolk rooms’ mammoth events but it followed a familiar pattern. Speedy selling of two- and three-figure pieces was supported by a handful of better offerings selling into four figures.