Regency goncalo alves, white marble and parcel gilt breakfront cabinet by George Bullock, estimate £6000-8000 at Woolley & Wallis.
1. Breakfront cabinet
This Regency goncalo alves, white marble and parcel gilt breakfront cabinet by George Bullock has a guide of £6000-8000 at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on April 16-18.
Unusually stamped for the maker to each of the seven drawers, the cabinet features the same grille design as a pair of bookcases made for Napoleon and that appear in the ‘Plans and elevations for St Helena’, dated November 1815.
It has a paper exhibition label for The BADA Art Treasures Exhibition, Bath, 1958, where it was exhibited by Boswell & Ward.
2. Chinese green patinated bronze incense burner
Chinese green patinated bronze incense burner of archaic form, estimate £200-300 at W&H Peacock.
W&H Peacock will be selling just under 300 lots from the estate of Phillip Allen (1938-2022) in a stand-alone auction on April 19.
The saleroom says some of those lots comprise 30-40 items, so although not many in total it is “actually a really big collection, all taken from his Bedford home. On our client’s instructions, the estimates are all on a ‘come and get me’ basis as the sale is almost all without reserve. Phillip was one of our auction regulars. He was a council member of the Oriental Ceramic Society and honorary secretary of the Sir Victor Sassoon Ivories Trust.”
Shown here is a Chinese green patinated bronze incense burner of archaic form, the triform base decorated with taotie masks, probably 18th century, 8in (20.5cm) high x 6½in (16cm) deep, 2037gms.
The estimate at the Bedford auction is £200-300.
Salisbury auction house Woolley & Wallis sold over 300 lots from Sir Phillips’ collection of Chinese and Japanese works of art in November last year.
3. Winston Churchill letter
A 1951 letter by Sir Winston Churchill to an RJ Whitwell, tropical fish breeder, estimate £1500-2500 at TW Gaze (being offered with an unsmoked Churchill cigar).
By October 1951 Sir Winston Churchill was back in office as the British prime minister but two months earlier his attention seemed to focus more on Black Mollies and Siamese Fighters.
These and other types of exotic fish feature in a letter dated August 8 which is now up for auction at TW Gaze of Diss, Norfolk.
The two-page (both now framed) typed letter, signed by Churchill, was sent on Chartwell, Westerham, Kent headed paper to an RJ Whitwell, tropical fish breeder and distributor in West Bergholt. It thanks Whitwell for a recent supply of exotic fish taken to him at Chartwell and asks to be invoiced. It features a manuscript pen and ink correction of a typo by Churchill, changing a typed t at the end of Siamese to an e.
The lot offered in the Militaria sale on April 18 also includes an unsmoked cigar given by Churchill to Whitwell when he visited to discuss and advise on keeping tropical fish. It is one of Churchill’s favoured brands, the now defunct La Aroma de Cuba, still intact and unopened in its original plastic wrapping, housed in a contemporary felt lined, glass fronted mahogany case.
The vendor is Whitwell’s nephew. Estimate £1500-2500.
4. Enamel triptych
Enamel triptych by Phoebe Anna Traquair, estimate £6000-8000 at Lyon & Turnbull.
This enamel triptych is the unmistakable work of Phoebe Anna Traquair (1873-1936), the first woman to be given honorary membership of the Scottish Royal Academy, in 1920.
The devotional work, dated 1906, is one of four known (another is in the Victoria and Albert Museum). The enamelled scenes represent ‘Love, Comforter of the Night’, flanked by ‘Evening’ and ‘Morning’, all of which Traquair also produced as single enamels set as pendants. The text is taken from the psalms.
As part of Lyon & Turnbull’s Design Since 1860 sale in Edinburgh on April 17-18, it has a guide of £6000-8000.
5. Italian marble-top table
North Italian marble-top table, estimate £2000-4000 at Sloane Street Auctions.
Around 80 lots from the storerooms of Pimlico Road dealer Ossowski have been consigned for sale at Sloane Street Auctions in London on April 18.
The base of this north Italian marble-top table is carved from a single tree trunk, with paint analysis dating the pigments before 1700.
Estimate £2000-4000.
6. George III commode
George III serpentine tulipwood and marquetry commode attributed to the Swedish emigré craftsmen Christopher Fuhrlohg, estimate £3000-5000 at Hutchinson Scott.
The sales series at Hutchinson Scott in Skipton on April 16-19 features the retirement collection of the Warwick dealers Patrick and Gilian Morley.
The lots include this George III serpentine tulipwood and marquetry commode attributed to the Swedish emigré craftsmen Christopher Fuhrlohg (d. 1790). At the start of his London career, he worked for John and William Linnell before opening his own Tottenham Court Road workshops.
Fuhrlohg’s own furniture and the stock-in-trade of his Gerrard Street house was sold by Christie’s on February 21, 1787.
This commode, dated to c.1770, is estimated at £3000-5000.
7. Lord Leighton watercolour
Watercolour by Frederic, Lord Leighton, estimate £2000-3000 at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood.
This watercolour by Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-96) has an estimate of £2000-3000 at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood in Exeter on April 16-17.
The view of a Gothic city (probably based on Frankfurt where Leighton attended the Städelsches Kunstinstitut from 1846-47) was intended as an illustration for a copy of Paradise Lost.
The scene refers to Book IV of John Milton’s 17th century poem although the calligraphed inscription – probably by Leighton’s own hand – has somewhat altered the verses, changing ‘sapphires’ to ‘fire’, and ‘clouded’ to ‘cloudy’.
