Auctioneers

Update (July 2019): auctions resumed at Bloomsbury in 2018 following Gurr Johns' purchase of Dreweatts and Bloomsbury in 2017. In February 2019 it expanded the number of sales at its London office at 16-17 Pall Mall. The original story is below.

“My lord, because I know that you will take pleasure in the great victory which our Lord has granted me on this voyage, I write you this letter, by which you will learn how… I crossed to the Indies, where I found many islands populated with innumerable inhabitants; and I have taken possession of all of them…”

Part of a consignment from a deceased estate in Totnes, this stoneware bowl by red-hot studio pottery favourite Dame Lucie Rie was a near certainty to exceed the £6000-9000 estimate when Chudleigh auction house Michael J Bowman (17.5% buyer’s premium) received a £20,000 commission bid from Japan ahead of the September 23 Devon sale.

One of the most sought-after models in the jukebox world is the Wurlitzer Peacock Type 850, designed by Paul Fueller in 1941. It is generally considered the biggest, the showiest and ‘most jukeboxy’ jukebox of them all.

Hansons Auctioneers in Etwall, Derbyshire sold a Yongzheng (1723-35) mark and period dish for £230,000 (plus premium) on September 29.

Modern sculpture, including a small rediscovered marine ivory piece by Eric Gill (1882-1940), took centre stage at Duke’s (22% buyer’s premium) in Dorset.

A pair of watercolours depicting Berwick-upon-Tweed, the northern-most town in England, turned up at Batemans (20% buyer’s premium) on September 2.

A nude painting by the 19th century English artist William Etty (1787-1849) starred in Sworders’ (22% buyer’s premium) sale in Essex. The 2ft 2in x 19in (66 x 49cm) oil on panel shows a naked woman in a wooded landscape, her head and body turned away from the viewer.

An unusual medals sale has led to an unusual outcome. An application is to be made to export from Canada the Victoria Cross group won by heroic Lieutenant Colonel David Currie after it was bought by a British private collector.

Cheap sterling can help bring in the foreign buyers – but only if auctioneers can deliver the right goods. These were much in evidence at Chorley’s (20% buyer’s premium) sale at Prinknash Abbey on September 13-14.

“Only a Rizla paper between them,” is what judge Philip Arnold declared as he announced the winner of the 2017 NAVA Propertymark Novice Auctioneer of the year.

Sotheby’s Hong Kong autumn series posted benchmark sums in two Chinese works of art categories. Records were broken for both ceramics and carved jade.

West Hall, located on the outskirts of Long Burton a few miles south of Sherborne, is an imposing stone-built manor house. The ancient iron-studded front door still bears the axe marks made by Oliver Cromwell’s Roundheads in the English Civil War as they tried to beat down the door. They suspected Charles I may have been hiding inside.

A collection of early 20th century Chinese silver attracted wide interest at Catherine Southon’s (18% buyer’s premium) September 6 sale at Selsdon, south London.

A letter billed as one of the most important items of ephemera from the Titanic to be offered at auction will go under the hammer at Henry Aldridge & Son on October 21 in Devizes, Wiltshire.

The first book sale of the new season at Sotheby’s (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) dispersed the travel library of John and Suzanne Bonham, well-known specialist dealers in the British and international antiquarian book trade.