Mirror

Mallams (25% buyer’s premium) got off to an early New Year start with a Country House auction.

Traditional antiques are very much still in demand, according to reports from dealers at Battersea’s winter Decorative Fair.

Line Vautrin (1913-97) began her career selling her cast metal jewellery door-to-door.

A 14th or 15th century Persian mirror that emerged at auction in Lincolnshire took a five-figure sum.

In a style admired in the gardens at Versailles and at a House & Garden sale in Abingdon, a pair of urns after those created for Louis XIV’s great project led the field at Mallams (25% buyer’s premium).

A small collection of 17th century stumpwork offered at Lindsay Burns in Perth was topped by this japanned and needlework mirror frame.

This 18th century Chinese export reverse-painted mirror in a period gilt frame took a five-figure sum at auction.

Estimated at £800-1200, this Regency giltwood and ebonised convex wall mirror sold at £12,500 at Toovey’s (24.5% buyer’s premium) on November 3.

Carved giltwood mirrors were in strong demand at Dreweatts, four of them among the five-figure prices.

Complex cartouche-shaped marginal wall mirrors from the early 18th century are notably rarer than arched or rectangular examples.

Ninety lots from family’s Norfolk home gave a taster of the traditional items they collected

The tills are ringing once more at Dreweatts (25% buyer’s premium). Under the ownership of the Gurr Johns group, the Newbury firm sold by Stanley Gibbons for £1.25m in 2017 has received a welcome shot in the arm.

This Scottish Arts & Crafts brass framed mirror, above, is the epitome of the so-called Glasgow Style.

The George I period giltwood and gilt gesso girandole or mirror shown here belonged to art historian, connoisseur and collector Ralph Edwards (1894-1977).

The furniture and works of art sale at Crewkerne auction house Lawrences (25% buyer’ premium) on January 21 included a set of George II walnut seating furniture with an excellent provenance.

Ecclesiastic buildings can be the source of good secular antiques: typically items bequeathed in the distant past by parishioners for church use.

A group of sleek Deco furnishings designed in the 1930s by Eugène Printz (1879-1948) for a villa in Casablanca went under the hammer at Briscadieu (23% buyer’s premium inc VAT) in Bordeaux.

Bought in 1952 by a semi-pro Skegness musician who played with East Coast seaside entertainers, this steel string guitar got a big show of hands at Louth auction house John Taylors (18% buyer’s premium).

An ensemble of furnishings by the French designer/decorator Eugène Printz (1879- 1948) that were created in the 1930s for a villa in Casablanca, Morocco, will feature at Briscadieu Bordeaux in the French city on November 6.

The vast majority of cushion-moulded mirrors from the late 17th century have lost their original cresting, which was both flamboyant and fragile.