There were two primitive early 19th century ash and elm comb back Windsor chairs in this sale, both from the same source and both estimated at £600-800. Why then should one fail to sell (it was snapped up after the sale for a mere £360) but the other race away, selling to a dealer’s bid of £3400?
According to specialist Will Axon the differences discussed at the view were small but significant – the better of the two had a lobster back and most importantly a large percentage of original green paint.
Another fine folk art entry to this sale was an early Victorian woolwork picture of a royal ship, measuring 23in x 2ft 7in (59 x 79cm). It was a great subject, a 68-gun vessel flying (unusually) the Royal Standard and festooned with bunting and Union flags against an abstract blue and white sky and a deep cobalt sea, and the colours were remarkably fresh. It sold to the trade at £5800 (estimate £1000-1500).
The major draw in the ceramics was the collection of Dick Burge – 76 lots from a Suffolk-based collector who is downsizing after a 20-year love affair with creamware. Burge’s niche was the transfer printed wares that from literature and politics to shipping and Masonry mark the national mood of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
The most expensive of these are those produced for the American market (whaling subjects and military campaign jugs in particular make truly colossal sums) but in terms of homegrown subject matter there are few better than Nelson. Top selling component of this archive was a 7in (17.5cm) jug printed with the map and description of the Battle of Trafalgar to one side and with an oval portrait of Adml Lord Nelson, together with his dates of birth, and death aged 47. It showed some signs of the discolouration that can blight creamware and had some chips but made £2000.
In near perfect condition and a rare subject, a 6in (15.5cm) Liverpool mug printed in black with East View of Liverpool Light House & Signals on Bidston Hill with all 50 signals flying and the ship’s owners identified in the legend below sold at £1100, the same price paid for a 5in (12.5cm) mug printed in black and overpainted with British Slavery, a Gilray cartoon of 1792 exclaiming against taxes making Slaves of Us All. To one side of the mug (with a few chips to the rim) was a plump British gent gorging on roast beef, to the other his tax free French counterpart all skin and bone and eating a clove of garlic.
The overall condition of the archive was not great but some pieces were rare enough for this not to matter too much. A substantial number were bought by a Derbyshire bidder and there was interest from London and the Cotswolds although surprisingly little from the US.
Sold at £1000 was a 5in (13cm) high jug printed in black and overpainted to one side with a ship above the wish for Success to the Pilchard Fishery and to the other with a lady with an olive branch and cornucopia titled Peace and Plenty and the inscription below the spout Michael and Jane Donkin. A slightly larger jug with scenes titled Seperation [sic] of Louis XVI from his family and Massacre of the French King was evidently a rarity, selling for £1200 (estimate £350-500) despite major restoration.
From another source, and a real gem, was a Dillwyn, Swansea 71/2in (19cm) high blue and white frog puzzle jug printed with a view of Pulteney Bridge in Bath from a wooded landscape with deer with an incised JBD mark. Damage was fairly minor – one nozzle had been broken off and reglued and the rim had been chipped before glazing – but the price was not. It brought £2000 (estimate £500-800).
Despite chips to the foot and rim, an 18th century delft urn-shaped vase, 6in (15cm) high was a rare piece, painted in blue with churches either side of lion mask handles. It sold for £950 (estimate £150-250) a bid more than a £900 Wedgwood majolica oyster barrel, moulded with shellfish, 13in (32cm) high, that had a major crack to the coopered barrel.
One of the highest prices of the sale was the £9500 paid for a Bidjar (North Persia) carpet woven to an indigo field with a Herati design within a madder border and two subsidiary foliate borders, 19ft 4in by 15ft 7in (5.89 x 4.76m). This large carpet with some wear was one of a collection of Turkish and Persian carpets from Old Warden Park in Bedfordshire, former home of the Shuttleworth family and now the property of the Richard Ormonde Shuttleworth Remembrance Trust.
All the carpets were bought for the house, designed by architect, Henry Clutton in 1872, including this one that was estimated at £1500-3000.
Collectors’ items were the strongpoint of the silver. A silver-mounted terrapin shell snuff box, c.1800, unmarked but engraved to the flush hinged cover with a crest and initial sold for £420 while a George II cream jug by Francis Spilsbury I, London 1729, of plain baluster form raised on three-scrolled double hoof feet, 4in (10cm) high made £1450 (estimate £300-400).
A Queen Anne tankard with stepped and domed cover and scroll thumbpiece weighing 30oz (933g) and marked for Humphrey Payne, London 1713, brought £1900, but the top price was provided by a pair of George III candlesticks by Ebeneezer Coker, London 1765, with gadrooned square bases and canted knopped stems, sold with non-matching three-light candelabrum fixtures with bell-shaped sockets and beaded drip trays by William Abdy, London 1794. Totalling 80oz (2.49kg), they made £4800.
Very scruffy, but promising a spectacular clean and polish, a Regency mahogany concertina action dining table brought £10,000. Reeded downswept legs with neoclassical brass castors and three extra leaves (at least one a replacement) extending to 9ft 3in (2.82m) were features helping it to a double estimate.
Not quite in such untouched condition but a target for the trade nonetheless, was an early 18th century oyster veneered chest of two short and three long graduated drawers on a later stand with a single drawer and bracket feet. The stand did it few favours but the diminutively-sized chest, just 2ft 7in (79cm) wide, had a good skin of thick veneers and with new feet could be very commercial indeed. A private entry from a village just outside Newmarket, it posted the highest price of the day: £11,500.
Top-notch caddies remain strong and here a Tunbridgeware double tea caddy with floral designs to both exterior and an interior including four canisters and two mixing bowls doubled hopes at £2600.
A Regency crossbanded satinwood balloon mantle timepiece with an unsigned fusee movement but a 5in (13cm) diameter convex enamel dial marked Vulliamy London made £2500, while a Victorian brass skeleton clock with a cathedral-type open frame, pierced chapter ring and a gong striking twin chain fusee movement by H. Palmer of Birmingham made £2000.
A four-barrelled pepperbox revolver by William Needler, 15 Scale Lane, Hull c.1845 in exceptional (probably unfired) condition with a full complement of accessories in a fitted mahogany box, took £2400.
Cheffins, Cambridge, June 25-26
Number of lots: 1200
Number of lots sold: 824
Sale total: £359,000
Buyer’s premium: 15 per cent
A lick of paint adds a zero to the price…
Anyone who has studied the Americana market in any detail will know how important surfaces have become to its many folk art aficionados. Original paint is not just a bonus – it can often be the difference between $1000 and $10,000. And it can happen here, too.
