Leading the furniture was a Victorian burr walnut library table. With a shaped rectangular top fitted with a single flush frieze drawer and raised on a pair of round turned end standards connected by a serpentine curved stretcher, the table, 2ft 111/2 by 2ft 3in by 15in (90 x 69 x 38cm), had been bought by the private vendor at a Devon auction around 15 years ago for £1450.
That was a boom period for antiques but the vendor just about got his money back when a Brixham dealer took the table at £2200.
The same dealer went on to take a William IV mahogany chest of drawers. Measuring 4ft by 3ft 10in by 2ft (1.21 x 1.16 x 61cm) the chest had a dragooned top above a flame veneered flush frieze drawer and three graduated drawers with bobbin and reel mouldings. The replacement loop handles did not deter the dealer who took the chest at an above-estimate £1500.
Elsewhere in the furniture, a Victorian mahogany bagatelle table by Orme & Son of Manchester with crossbanded folding top and green baize playing surface went at a mid-estimate £750.
Best of the ceramics was a Clarice Cliff Bizarre vase decorated in the Swirls pattern, 53/4in (15cm) high orange-rimmed and yellow-footed. It went to a collector at a mid-estimate £900.
Among the arms and armour were two 18th century silver-hilted small swords estimated at £200-300 which each made considerably more.
The larger weapon, with a 2ft 10in (86cm) long blade and overall gadrooned decoration, had suffered damage but went at £900 to a Bristol buyer who then took the smaller sword, with a blade length of 2ft 2in (66cm) with punched and engraved arabesque leaf scroll decoration, at £1000.
Michael J. Bowman, Newton Abbot,
May 19
Buyer’s premium: 10 per cent
Vendor gets his money back on a boom-era table
UK: ALTHOUGH there were no huge prices among the 416 lots at these Devon rooms, there was success across the wide range of offerings.
