East Midlands

What will £1500 buy in today’s picture market? If quality is going to be my criterion and oil painting is my medium, then not very much, one might be forced to conclude after reading the latest report on how the market is polarising between an increasingly expensive best and a totally undesirable rest.

Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, designed by Robert Adam and James Paine, is one of Britain’s best known neo-classical stately homes. It has been home to the Curzons for centuries and although its principal contents were long ago gifted to the National Trust, the family still occupy a substantial wing and they have instructed Nottingham auctioneers Neales to hold an attic sale of their possessions this month on the premises.

Good stock furniture dominated this 894-lot wide-ranging sale on 13 December at Heathcote Ball sourced from various private sources in Leicestershire and Derbyshire.

A small part of the English trade’s history went under the hammer along with the last effects of Leicester dealer Ernest Galinksy at Warner Auctions sale on 31 October.

Fresh-to-market goods from the deceased estate of a well-known Lincolnshire lady, Mrs Rosalys Ransom, ensured keen trade and private interest at this Lincolnshire sale on 26 September at Thos. Mawer resulting in a 75 per cent take up of the 522 lots and a total of £123,000.

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.

Furniture took the only four-figure bids at this 858-lot Heathcote Ball Leicester sale on June 21 with a George II oak chest-on-stand leading the way.

UK: THE trial of Dennis Yates, the Nottingham-based radio specialist accused of blackmail and receiving stolen goods after an Enigma code machine was stolen from Bletchley Park Museum, may be delayed by a defence plea to move the venue.

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.

Lowly-rated architect’s table sells at £24,000 UK: OCCASIONALLY a dream sale comes along for the auctioneer that needs no selling and takes off for no apparent reason. It happened at Nottingham where Neales’ specialist Bruce Fearne enjoyed taking some startling bids from privates and trade alike, for no obvious reason.

UK: THE FORMER Arpad Plesch copy of Sir Joseph Hooker’s 1855, first edition of Illustrations of Himalayan Plants which was sold for £19,500 in this Nottingham sale was featured in last week’s Antiques Trade Gazette (Issue No. 1480), but there were a few other interesting results in the natural history section.

UK: A rather tatty, plain appearance warranted an estimate of £800-1200 on this George III architect’s table at Neales’ sale in Nottingham on February 23, but its virginal structure encouraged interest from the highest reaches of the London trade.

UK: EARLY 20th century ceramics were again very much in evidence at the Leicester rooms 500-lot pre-Christmas dispersal.

UPPINGHAM treen dealer Wendy Grindley celebrated the first anniversary of her founding of Rutland Antiques Fair on November 19 with the launch of a 50-dealer event at Barnsdale Country Club, overlooking Rutland Water.

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: CYPHERS can be frustrating things, whether one is using the word to denote a code for secret writing or, as is more often the case in the antiques world, some ingenious arrangement of conjoined initials.

UK: POLICE investigating the theft of 70 works of art – including several Lowrys – from a private collector in Northamptonshire in January have arrested a total of three men.

UK: A pair of gilt and cedarwood girandoles in the neoclassical manner, 5ft 9in high by 3ft wide (1.75m x 91cm), from the contents of Barnby Moor House, near Retford offered by Neales of Nottingham on February 24.

UK: WHAT was it about this Bloor Derby cup which attracted attention from as far afield as America and Japan, when it was offered at the Derby salerooms of Neales on December 8?

UK: THERE remains some serious money available for the rarest of the Royal Doulton HN series figures as was seen at this Lincolnshire sale when one of the first of the Harry Nixon series was offered.