Auction Reports

The resurgent interest in quality Japanese material and the slower revival of English furniture were both evident in a cabinet on stand sold at West Sussex auction house Toovey’s (24.5% buyer’s premium).

A consignment of furniture from the medieval Eastington Hall, Worcestershire, boosted Chorley’s (20% buyer’s premium) latest sale in Prinknash Abbey, Gloucestershire.

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.

Mallams (20% buyer’s premium) offered 12 impeccably provenanced pieces by Peter Waals (1870-1937) at Oxford on May 23.

More of a curiosity than a clock but a decorator’s dream, a life-size caricature of a smiling Chinese man clutching a willow-pattern plate with gilt dragon hands emerged in the Ayr rooms of Thomas R Callan (17.5% buyer’s premium).

In the dispersal by Hansons (20% buyer’s premium) of the collections of Harold and Mary Wilson, the book section included copies of John Maynard Keynes’ 'General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money' of 1936 and 'A Treatise on Money' of 1933.

Best-seller and one of the biggest surprises at the white-glove sale of a mechanical music collection was a musical box, the catalogue entry of which could be summarised as ‘famous name, doesn’t work’.

While British studio potters were battling to break through in the 1930s, established factories, even Moorcroft, were struggling to survive the Great Depression.

Coming fresh to market from a corn merchant’s shop, seven early/mid- 20th century enamel signs extolling Spratt’s pet food for dogs, cats and canaries attracted UK collectors to Bishop & Miller’s (20% buyer’s premium) Stowmarket sale on May 17.

The May 22 sale at Dreweatts of Donnington Priory titled Japanese, Islamic and Indian Works of Art included a collection of Iznik and Damascus tiles from the estate of the artist Sir Howard Hodgkin (1932-2017).

As part of their first world tour, The Beatles played the Princess Theatre in Hong Kong twice in June 1964.

The hope at every house clearance came true for Reading auctioneer Chris Boreham when he unearthed this set of four Georgian silver rococo candlesticks at a local home.

Headline stratospheric results should not put collectors off, as a London auction underlines.

Two collections assembled since the late 1960s enthuse a fresh generation of buyers.

The furniture market continues to enjoy its occasional moments in the sun. During The Pedestal’s (25% buyer’s premium) sixth sale at Moor Park, Hertfordshire, on April 30 a George III carved mahogany octagonal tripod table (estimate £12,000-18,000) sold for £24,000.

One of the best pieces of early oak at spring provincial sales was an17th century carved oak mural livery cupboard sold at Henry Adams (20% buyer’s premium) of Chichester.

Catalogued as ‘exceptional’, this farmhouse refectory table fulfilled the auctioneer’s adjective in more than one way at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) sale in Dorchester on April 26.

After more than 50 years as a designer for international stamps and banknotes printer Waterlow & Sons, Leonard Douglas Fryer (1891-1965) retired to enjoyable obscurity at his home in Ilford.

Rusty, dusty and damaged, but bearing the magic of Marklin, a pre-First World War toy train emerged from the garage at a local house clearance. It starred in a collectors sale at the Cumbrian saleroom of 1818 Auctioneers (20% buyer’s premium inc VAT).

Illustrated below is one of seven lots of Dutch ‘white metal ’ miniature tableware and furniture entered into a weekly general sale at Gorringe’s (21% buyer’s premium).