Cotswold Auction Company

If you are a birdwatcher, you need a good pair of binoculars.

A recent sale at Cotswold Auction Company (22% buyer’s premium) included a single-owner collection of antiquities from Lionel Walrond (1927-2020).

Arts & Crafts enthusiasts who hoped to buy a pair of Voysey chairs at something close to their £20-40 estimate at an auction in the Cotswolds were to be disappointed.

Two institutions dominated bidding for the notebooks and correspondence of a significant Regency period female author at the Cotswold Auction Company in Cheltenham last week.

Robert Hillingford (1826-1904) was a Victorian painter of historical scenes, whose subjects included the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon, as well as scenes taken from Shakespearean plays.

A gold, jade and rock crystal model of a sedan chair by Fabergé was hammered down at £380,000 last week – a new house record for a Gloucestershire auctioneer.

The origin of ‘Tudor’ globe pomanders is still under discussion. It is generally thought that most originate from northern Europe but were probably made by itinerant craftsmen in a number of countries.

The sale of a remarkable gramophone collection two years ago at the Cotswold Auction Company (20% buyer’s premium), in which an EMG gramophone took £6500, prompted the consignment of another large collection to the June 4 sale at the Cheltenham rooms.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales at £800 or under, including Bernard Finegan Gribble maritime work.

Topping a number of good pre-Christmas clock sales was a rare table/bracket clock, among the last made by London ‘Golden Age’ name Daniel Quare (1649-1724) with Stephen Horseman, who became his partner at the Exchange Alley workshop in 1721.

Published in 1962, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase was the first book in a popular series of lupine tales by Joan Aiken (1924-2004), a prolific and prize-winning author whose specialities included the supernatural and children’s books that involved an elaborate, alternative history of Britain.