Lay’s Auctioneers

The story of Cornish care worker Jordan Rogers, who proved he was the illegitimate son and legitimate heir to a £50m Penrose mansion, made national headlines in May. It also had a knock-on effect in the auctioneering world.

A portrait by John Opie (1761-1807) led nearly two dozen family portraits from the historic Penrose Estate in Porthleven, Cornwall, at local Penzance saleroom David Lay (18% buyer’s premium) on May 2.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales below £1001, including an oil by Paul Gauguin's son Pola.

More homely than the material being produced in Scandinavia and France, the adzed oak furniture first made by Robert ‘Mouseman’ Thompson in the 1920s-30s was, nevertheless, a distinctive genre.

Illustrated with eight hand-coloured litho plates, each with moveable flaps, The Puppy’s Visit To His Friends was issued as one of EC Bennett’s moveable books, probably in the 1850s.

While five-figure sums for top-end 20th century design furniture are familiar in the international centres of New York, Paris and London, fewer pieces appear in the UK regional market.

Edwin Harris (1855-1906) is one name that did not feature in the Robin Hanbury-Tenison collection of Newlyn School art at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (see main story in this section).

In a worn but period calf binding, a 1697 first of John Evelyn’s Numismata. A Discourse of Medals… made £350 in the book section of a recent Cornish auction.

From 1936-45, St Ives artist John Wells (1907-2000) embarked on a series of labour-intensive creations while working as a GP on the Isles of Scilly.

Three modestly valued works at regional sales.

Early children’s books, many from a single collection formed by the late Mary Joy Sanger, provided a principal attraction in a February 27 sale held in Penzance by David Lay (18% buyer’s premium).

A bustling scene of Leicester Square by genre painter Edward Prentis (1797-1854) took £6800 at David Lay (18% buyer’s premium) of Penzance.

Just a clutch of canvases by the Cornish artist Marjorie Frances ‘Midge’ Bruford (1902-58) have gone under the auctioneer’s gavel.

Works of Cornish interest featured prominently in a sale held by David Lay (18% buyer’s premium) of Penzance, among them those from the library of the writer and scholar, PAS Pool.

Topping the 175 toys at David Lay’s (15% buyer’s premium) sale at Penzance on August 22, was this 1930s clockwork tinplate Krazy Kar marked By Permission Walt Disney – Mickey Mouse Ltd to the rear and Made in England to the left-hand side.

As well as the Richard Platt consignment, David Lay offered more than 100 lots of modern art by a local Cornish family.

Little-known but well-connected artist proves a hit as his widow sells 40 works in Penzance.