Mellors & Kirk

On a day when some unusual offerings caught the eye at the Nottingham sale held by Mellors & Kirk, one such lot was a set of 36 Anglo-Indian Company School Delhi or Agra oval miniatures dating to 1827 and depicting India’s nobility and their wives, six of whom are shown right.

THE received wisdom of the art market tells us that heavily restored paintings attract little demand from the trade at auction. But sometimes a subject is just too commercial for dealers to pass by, such as this Arthur Wardle (1864-1947) canvas, right, of four terrier puppies, Mischief in Quadruplet, which came up for sale at the Nottingham rooms of Mellors & Kirk (15% buyer’s premium) back on April 23.

LONG before Heineken, Allsopp & Sons’ Burton ale had a claim to be the beer which reached the parts other beers could not reach – bottles of it accompanied Sir George Strong Nares’ expedition attempting to reach the South Pole in 1875.

THE inscription Wilkes And Liberty No. 45 on this 9in (23cm) diameter Lambeth delftware portrait plate is as good as a date as it refers to the publication of the 45th issue of John Wilkes’ sharp-tongued periodical The North Briton.

NOT for nothing is the antiques market known for being unpredictable, nay, almost perverse. In the middle of the worst recession that many dealers have experienced, the worst drought that many salerooms have ever had to endure, auctioneer Nigel Kirk of Mellors and Kirk recorded his best sale in the brief (ten-year) history of his business on 10-11 April. He could not quite believe it, especially as half of the furniture lots failed to sell, but the statistics bore out the remarkable reality.

Not such a pretty face, perhaps, but the artist was certainly worth a thousand dollars or more.

Illustrated are a pair of ice pails, covers and liners from the Duke of Newcastle’s Derby porcelain service, c.1797, dispersed by Mellors and Kirk in Nottingham on April 10.

Job lots in local sales that are not widely advertised can sometimes yield the greatest bargains. As such, this William III oval silver spice box, right, was the treasure acquired with the detritus of a job lot by a local dealer at a Nottinghamshire auction for just £12.

UK: One of this year’s most stunning finds, a group of four rare Sèvres Etruscan red ground dessert plates from the Prince Napoleon Service, 1854-6, offered at Mellors and Kirk, Nottingham, on April 5.

UK: JAPANESE porcelain does not come much rarer or more expensive than that produced by the private factory of the princes of Nabeshima, which is why auctioneer Nigel Kirk’s pulse quickened when he first glanced at this 8in (20cm) diameter dish, illustrated here, entered for the January sale of Mellors and Kirk.

UK: THE current fashion for English porcelain may lean towards the earliest pieces of blue and white, but it was not the case 30 years ago when the vendor of this First Period Worcester yellow ground mask jug, c.1760 purchased this piece for £3800 at the Grosvenor House Antiques Fair.

UK: PROBABLY commissioned by General Charles Churchill – whose arms it bears – for his European campaigns after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, this William and Mary silver-gilt travelling set came up at Mellors & Kirk of Nottingham on March 25-26 where it sold privately at £48,000 (plus 10 per cent premium).