Chest

A George II polychrome-painted bridal chest leads Bonhams Oak Interior sale on September 20 with an estimate of £30,000-40,000.

MANY people are content to put together one major collection in their lifetime. To assemble one, disperse it at a major saleroom, set about doing the same thing all over again and then hold a second auction within the space of just over a decade takes some doing.

This oak architect’s or engineer’s chest is quite possibly a one-off piece made for renowned Liberty & Co. designer Archibald Knox by the Barnstable firm Shapland and Petter.

SOME provincial auctioneers and London’s major houses batten down their hatches during the traditionally dead month of August, but for Scarborough Perry (15% buyer's premium) it was business as usual for their August 12-13 sale.

SMALL, original and honest – these classic qualities took a 2ft 5in x 2ft 6 1/2in (74x 77cm) George I walnut chest to the top of the sales chart at Aldridges’ (15% buyer's premium) 344-lot May 25 sale where it took £3100.

PERIOD if possible, but, above all, practical – this seems to be the current code among furniture buyers in the experience of Amersham Auction Rooms (15% buyer's premium) over the past couple of years.

THE March 5 sale at Dee Atkinson & Harrison's (10% buyer's premium) West Yorkshire saleroom was the first antiques offering of the year and, after an 83 per cent selling rate on nearly 700 lots, the auctioneers took encouragement from the way the market seemed to be picking up, with furniture, at last, edging out of the doldrums.

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.

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.

Birmingham auctioneers Fellows & Sons (15% buyer’s premium) are particularly known for their silver and jewellery sales but on October 29 it was a piece of furniture which took the top honours. A William and Mary walnut and crossbanded chest on stand had made £3400 when it was auctioned in 1998 by James & Lister Lea of Birmingham as part of the estate of the Late Mrs Joyce Cadbury of the Bourneville-based chocolate dynasty. Here it was punchily estimated at £4500-5500.

BRINGING a welcome change of climate into English salerooms from North Italy, this 18th century cassone, right, led what auctioneer Ben Gamble described as a day when “everything seemed to be selling well” at South & Stubbs (10% buyer’s premium) on September 27 at their Penkridge, Staffordshire salerooms.

ONE of the most widely recognised furniture designs of the 20th century, Ray and Charles Eames’ reclining chair and ottoman, designed in 1956 for the film director Billy Wilder, has also been among the most mass produced. Every second-hand design shop in Britain will either stock a copy, or will tell you they have just sold one, but the recent proliferation of online warehouse retailers has stabilised the price for modern copies at around £2000.

THERE were few out and out stars at the Amersham Buckinghamshire rooms on 6 June but the buyers were keen enough to support the auctioneers’ contention that, with more widespread holidays and the Internet, it is only vendors who are cautious about midsummer sales.

Brown furniture has proved hard to shift at auction in recent months but the success of this George I burr walnut chest on stand offered at the Bristol Auction Rooms on June 18 may signal the tide is turning.

ITALY: Back on November 4, Semenzato (19 per cent buyer’s premium, including VAT) held a sale of furniture and works of art in Venice in which an 18th century Venetian painted chest of drawers, pictured right, produced the highest price of the day at Li160m (£52,460).

This 17th century wrought iron Armada chest had stood unopened in the attic of an English country house for 180 years until it was finally unsealed earlier this year and found to contain a mass of papers relating to Dr William Harvey and his brother Eliab which had been deposited there by his descendants in 1821.