Chest

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.

Furniture took the only four-figure bids at this 858-lot Heathcote Ball Leicester sale on June 21 with a George II oak chest-on-stand leading the way.

AFTER a slow start, this Henley event picked up with the furniture section in which an early 18th century 2ft 5in (74cm) wide oak chest of three drawers with original handles, shot past its £300-500 estimate to sell at £3100.

UK: Wellington chests remain a steady favourite in the middle-price range of furniture, particularly when they come as a pair as at this Bedford sale.

UK: Loyal service brings its rewards, as this fine Queen Anne walnut bachelor’s chest, which sold at Anderson & Garland on Thursday, September 21, attests.

UK: SUCH was the fine condition of this 3ft 3in (99cm) William and Mary oyster veneered walnut chest when it appeared at Clevedon Salerooms on September 2 that two bidders, one on the phone and one in the room, competed for it well beyond its £5000-7500 estimate.

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.

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.