Fonsie Mealy

Bid to €10,000 (£9100) in a timed online sale at Fonsie Mealy (25/20% buyers premium) this summer was a two-volume collection of medical and other receipts compiled by Mrs Mary Leadbeater (1758-1826).

Literary lots in a recent Irish sale included one of a thousand signed copies of the 1922, limited-edition issue of 'The Trembling of the Veil', one of William Butler Yeats’ autobiographical works.

Consigned from a scholarly collector in New Zealand, a pair of relief-carved ivory panels was the among the highlights of Fonsie Mealy’s (22% buyer’s premium inc VAT) Castlecomer sale on November 26.

In stark contrast to the elegant dolls’ houses which took the higher bids at a recent auction (ATG No 2403), a shillelagh was evidence of violence and tragedy in 19th century Ireland.

Although catalogued as ‘Continental’, this mid-19th century porcelain figure of a seated semi-nude ballet dancer below carries impressed marks for the factory established by the English entrepreneur Francis Gardner in the town of Verbilki near Moscow in 1766.

Stand-out lot in a recent Irish sale was one of the 100 special copies of Ulysses printed on Dutch handmade paper by Van Gelder that James Joyce signed on publication in Paris in 1922.

Godwin Swifte, who styled himself as Lord Carlingford, was a member of one of Ireland’s notable families and a maverick of early flight.

With ‘on the premises’ country house contents sales now so rare, the more usual practice is for the better pieces to be removed to saleroom bases.

On account of its relative scarcity, all Irish silver carries a premium. It is the pieces made in small provincial centres that are most highly prized.

Some 150 lots of books formed part of a recent Irish auction held at Fortgranite, Baltinglass, in Co Wicklow, the home for over 200 years of the Dennis family.

A label to this 21 x 16½in (53 x 42cm) print reads 'Photograph of the Moon, taken by Prof Henry Draper, MD, with a silvered glass Telescope, Fifteen and a Half Inches Aperture, Hastings NY September 3rd 1863'.

A massive 3ft (92cm) high majolica urn – a riot of grotesque masks, mythical figures and other motifs drawn from Renaissance sources – combining the talents of two key figures in the history of the Minton factory was included in Fonsie Mealy’s (20% buyer’s premium) sale on March 5.

Although catalogued as 18th century, this marquetry table cabinet – sold for a multi-estimate sum in Ireland last week – is more probably late 16th or early 17th century.

A copy of WB Yeats’ The Wanderings of Oisin… offered in a recent Irish sale was an example of Fisher Unwin’s 1892 second issue. That is rare enough, but this copy bore an inscription that made it very special indeed.

While the market shows increasingly discerning tastes, quality definitely counts at auction.

Illustrated here are some of the oldest lots ever auctioned – three in the Evolution Sale at on November 20 at Summers Place Auctions (25/20% buyer’s premium) of Billingshurst, West Sussex, and the other from Fonsie Mealy (23% buyer’s premium inc VAT) of Castlecomer, Ireland, in a sale held on the same day.

At a time when catering for niche interests is a profitable path for auctioneers, recent sales in Scotland, Ireland and England have shown that the furniture market can still come to life – provided it meets three criteria.