Chair

Arts & Crafts enthusiasts who hoped to buy a pair of Voysey chairs at something close to their £20-40 estimate at an auction in the Cotswolds were to be disappointed.

The near dominance of Scandinavians among mid-20th century designers of wood furniture and artefacts was underlined at two sales at Chiswick Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) in February.

MADAM – Re: Hornby Castle Chair in the Bonhams Oak Interior sale (ATG No 2431). I have just returned from holiday to see ‘my’ old armchair staring out at me from the ATG front page. I thought you might be interested in a bit of its missing history.

The so-called Hornby Castle Chair, a 4ft 7in (1.38m) high oak open armchair c.1580-1600, sold for £35,000 plus premium at the latest Oak Interior sale at Bonhams in Oxford.

The Gentleman’s Library Sale at Bonhams on February 12-13 included a miniature William and Mary or Queen Anne walnut armchair standing 21in (53cm) high).

While furniture and books fully justified its title, The Oxford Library Sale at Mallams (22.5% buyer’s premium) was led by a surprise star: a rather lowly regarded gesso bust of the sort that would have been a minor decoration to such a room.

In 1952, India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru commissioned the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier to design and construct the north Indian city of Chandigarh.

A pair of Russian Empire chairs, 1810-15, featuring striking decorative brass inlay is offered for £25,000 by Ellis Fine Art at the Petersfield Antiques Fair.

Putting classic English furniture firmly back in the forefront of provincial sales in the first part of December was this Chippendale-design Gainsborough library armchair offered in Winchester by Andrew Smith (21% buyer’s premium).

Items from the estate of the Dame Elisabeth Frink (1930-93) were included in the Charterhouse (25% buyer’s premium) sale in Sherborne, Dorset, on November 14-15.

The final instalment of the three annual Pavilions of Harrogate Decorative Antiques & Fine Art Fair includes this small naive hedge or country chair, c.1820, from Ireland’s County Antrim.

Last week’s on-the-premises sale at Athelhampton House in Dorset was a near sell-out with a hammer price of close to £1.2m.

Our weekly selection from salerooms.

The centenary of the influential design school provides a theme for the final Battersea Park fair of 2019

Early English oak and yew and ceramics from St Petersburg to Stoke-on-Trent were features of a 250-lot sale which left auctioneer Jeremy Lamond in a quietly upbeat mood after Halls’ (23% buyer’s premium) summer sale at Shrewsbury.

Better by a distance than nine similar items, a mid-17th century wainscot chair offered by Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) in Crewkerne demonstrated the yawning price gap between the acceptable and the desirable in the early oak market.

This pair of c.1970s Italian Onda (Wave) lounge chairs in chrome and leather designed by Giovanni Offredi for Saporiti Italia will feature in the Downtown Los Angeles Collections and Estates auction to be held on Sunday, July 28, by the Andrew Jones auction house.

This pair of 19th century Arts & Crafts low oak chairs is available from Elaine Phillips Antiques at the next edition of The Pavilions of Harrogate Decorative Antiques & Fine Art Fair priced at £1150.

When it comes to 20th century furniture female designers are a rarity. Some folk still think ‘Ray’ Eames – real name Bernice – was a man.