Furniture

A heavily carved and silvered wood ‘console table’, offered with an estimate of £1500-2500 at Lacy Scott & Knight’s (20% buyer’s premium) September 9 sale came with a somewhat exotic story.

It is modest both in size and venue but the annual Nottingham Tile Fair organised by the Tiles and Architectural Ceramics Society has an important place in the diary for collectors in this specialised field.

Christie’s is repackaging its global decorative arts sales calendar, adopting a more selective approach to the lots it sells while seeking to broaden the appeal of English and European furniture and chattels.

Shortly after the catalogue for Bellmans’ recent sale in Wisborough Green, Sussex had gone to press, a printed paper label was noticed to the underside of this burr-veneered occasional table. It read 'L Pearson, Cabinet Maker & Upholsterer, 3 Elizabeth Street, Hobart Town'.

Dealers celebrated early successes at the 20/21 British Art Fair and LAPADA Art & Antiques Fair last week.

Two rare early pieces of furniture by the famous architect and designer Finn Juhl are among the highlights in Bruun Rasmussen’s Design sale to be held in Copenhagen on September 27-28.

A group of six Indo-European solid ebony chairs (sold for £26,000 (plus 20% buyer’s premium) at Dawson’s of Maidenhead on August 26. The buyer bidding online via thesaleroom.com was from the London trade.

Originally considered just another 20th century burr oak tallboy among a stack of material from a house clearance brought into the Hazel Grove rooms of Maxwells (15% buyer’s premium), opinions changed when a carved mouse was noticed on the lower left leg.

This focus on furniture kicks off with a royal link and three more cheers at summer sales for the furniture market which a number of auctioneers are saying shows modest signs of recovery.

When this cabinet on stand appeared in the inventory of a Gloucestershire home in the 1920s it was described simply as ‘An old Italian Cabinet of ebony and Tortoiseshell’. In fact, it is Flemish rather than Italian and was probably made in Antwerp in the first half of the 17th century.

While many in the trade believe the future lies in specialisation, Gloucestershire auction house Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) is making significant inroads into the general market beyond its renown as expert in books, maps and other works on paper.

Originally entered for a general sale at Charterhouse Auctions (20% buyer’s premium), a distinctive little walnut table with brass leg attachments caught the eye of auctioneer Richard Bromell who diverted it to the fine sale in the Sherborne rooms on June 22.

Entered by a leading UK college, two very similar pairs of mid-18th century mahogany lecterns, one illustrated above, became the focus of two major West Country dealers at Tayler & Fletcher’s (20% buyer’s premium) June 22 sale at Bourton-in-the-Water.

Travel broadens the mind, they say. Busy dealer John Read Smith believes it.

It is one week since doors opened to his new shop in the West Sussex village of Fittleworth and Joe Chaffer of Vagabond Antiques is in a whirl.

Two pieces of seating furniture which no early 20th century wealthy middle-class home would have lacked went comfortably over estimates at sales from Hampshire to Yorkshire in May.