Lacy Scott & Knight

Bid to £19,700 in a recent sale was one of 100 signed, large paper firsts of Oscar Wilde’s 'The Importance of Being Earnest' published by Leonard Smithers in 1899.

A significant collection of pictures by the Victorian watercolourist Albert Goodwin (1845-1932) was a near sell-out at auction in Suffolk and generated just under £120,000.

Some time in the early 1930s, the burghers of Norwich City Council appear to have been sufficiently cutting-edge as to purchase furniture by the designer destined to become one of the major names of 20th century design, Alvar Aalto (1898-1976).

This headstone design of a female nude by the controversial sculptor Eric Gill (1882-1940) was deemed too risky to be realised when he designed it in 1933.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales under £1300, including an Albert Goodwin view of Whitby.

Produced by Raphael Tuck & Sons c.1900, ‘Puppies Playtime’ is one of a pair of greeting card see-saws that sold for £140 in the book and ephemera section of a December 15 sale held by Lacy Scott & Knight (20% buyer’s premium).

Three modestly valued works in regional sales, all sold below £1000 including a watercolour of a North African market scene by Hercules Brabazon Brabazon.

Issued by ‘Hunt & Sons, Card Makers to His Majesty’, a ‘Great Mogul’ deck of playing cards of c.1830, the labels that seal the packaging still unbroken after all those years, featured in a recent Suffolk sale.

Clocks from England’s ‘Golden Age’ provided highlights at two early December sales.

Beloved of TV antiques programmes and of bidders knowing the lots are absolutely fresh to market, there are few phrases to stir the blood at an auction as much as ‘from the attic’.

A heavily carved and silvered wood ‘console table’, offered with an estimate of £1500-2500 at Lacy Scott & Knight’s (20% buyer’s premium) September 9 sale came with a somewhat exotic story.

The field encompassed by ‘Design’ sales is being diligently tilled by many UK auctioneers aware of the potential of a market appealing to younger buyers wary of traditional antiques.