Chorley's

A locket that tells the story of the brief, and little known, Scottish gold rush of 1869 surfaces in Gloucestershire

Chorley’s (22.5% buyer’s premium) Fine Art & Antiques auction was topped at £28,000 by a 17th century Mughal ivory inlaid rosewood table cabinet.

Among a flurry of historical portraits coming to the regional market at the start of this year, arguably the most notable appeared at Oxfordshire saleroom JS Fine Art (20% buyer’s premium).

Two of the main manufacturers of rocking horses – and competitors – featured in two salerooms recently.

A small portrait sketch of a young boy by George Henry Harlow (1787-1819) drew lively interest at the recent Fine Art & Antiques sale in Gloucestershire.

A great many of the lots that brought prices in the £1000-10,000 range in a recent Cheltenham sale were multiples of varying size – some running to as many as a hundred volumes – but noted here are a couple with that same Spetchley Park provenance that can be more precisely defined.

Naive-style Cornish art has been on a good run at regional auctions over recent months.

Works from either a distinguished collection or well-known owner offered with appealing estimates are an enticing prospect at auction.

The book section of a twice postponed Gloucestershire sale – one that included the rare white Chelsea owl featured on the front page of ATG No 2486 – comprised books from the library at Spetchley Park in the neighbouring county of Worcestershire.

A Constable-esque landscape turned a few heads at Chorley’s (22.5% buyer’s premium) latest fine art and antiques sale.

Having postponed the sale in November and again in January, Chorley’s finally got to sell an exceptional private collection of early English porcelain in Prinknash Abbey, Gloucestershire, on March 24.

The postponed January auction at Gloucestershire saleroom Chorley’s will take place on March 23-24.

A high-quality veduta of Venice by one of Canaletto’s followers was the runaway star at Chorley’s (22.5/15/12.5/10% buyer’s premium) two-day auction in Gloucestershire.

Some aspects of the traditional antiques market continue to perform with zest – and ‘folk art’ is among them.

Good art at a great price in regional sales

Such has been the fall in prices of Georgian card tables that it has become the norm for auctioneers to estimate most at well below £1000.

Samuel Palmer (1805-81) prints are not unusual on the market but one of two that were offered as a single lot at Chorley’s (22.5% buyer’s premium) in Cheltenham carried an interesting inscription by the artist’s son, AH Palmer.

Second-dibs sales at regional salerooms – those that follow after a major London auctioneer has cherry-picked the contents of a stately country house – can sometimes acquire the slighting epithet of ‘crumbs from a rich man’s table’.