East of England

Pennyfarthing Fairs cancelled their antiques fair at The Wyllyotts Centre, Potters Bar on Sunday, May 12 following the train crash in the town on Friday May 10 in which seven people died.

One of the earliest known portraits of Sir Robert Walpole, England’s first Prime Minister, is to be sold at Cheffin’s Cambridge salerooms on May 14, as part of the collection of Cambridge academic Sir John Plumb.

THE names of two women artists, one very well known, the other undeservedly obscure, provided talking points at two provincial sales in March.

“HEAVILY used” is not often a description that is likely to add value to a lot at auction. However, Betjemanians would certainly have been far from put off by the condition of a set of 32 Ordnance Survey maps that appeared at Cheffins of Cambridge on March 7.

One item for a fiver, another at five figures – the 1400-lot sale held by Keys (10% buyer’s premium) on February 20 was a classic of the old-fashioned, no- reasonable-consignment-refused kind at the Aylsham Salerooms in Norfolk. Most offerings over the two days sold at three figures but there were half a dozen or so lots which went over the £1000 mark and one which really aroused interest.

A DOSSIER of evidence put together by the Antiques Trade Gazette over several years of investigation has led to the directors of an Essex freight firm being banned from running limited companies.

Would that every soldier was awarded a piece of porcelain, as well as a medal, for acts of outstanding bravery. What a civilised army that would make.

While it is almost impossible to sell some routine furniture at present, Keys specialist Paul Goodley echoed the traditional view that attractively pitched guidelines are the key to success.

The estimate of £25-35 placed on a second impression copy of Tolkien’s The Hobbit was a reflection of its condition – “deplorable” being the cataloguer’s chosen epithet. There was no jacket and 20-30 leaves had been torn loose, one of which had been further torn into four (now three) pieces.

THE LAST 450 or so lots of a two-day general antiques sale on 6 December at Cheffins, Cambridge comprised books, many of them multiples.

NOT the top seller at this 653-lot Suffolk sale at Abbotts on 19 December but interesting in that it sold at all, was a burr walnut Victorian davenport.

Tattered and blackened, possibly by fire, this pair of William IV Gillows mahogany library chairs had been consigned by a local restorer to Willingham Auctions, near Cambridge, for sale on December 29.

THE Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is to be the new home for Federico Barocci’s £1.3m drawing Study for The Institution of the Eucharist.

The book section of a general antiques sale held by Cheffins of Cambridge on November 1 ran to only 58 lots, but this saleroom produces impressive, colour illustrated catalogues and no fewer that a dozen of those lots were illustrated, some of them at full page.

FEW clocks can claim to be as rare as this example, pictured right, which is being offered for sale at Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet in Essex on October 23. The rarity is based in part on the maker’s misfortune.

Nephew of the influential Amsterdam-based painting teacher Petrus Franciscus Greive (1811-1872), Johan Conrad Greive (1837-1891) was a modestly-talented 19th century Dutch artist who specialised in river and canal scenes often with numerous figures.

AS EVER, this Norfolk sale on 14 September at Keys, Aylsham provided an eclectic mix of stock, from the seriously antiquarian to the frivolous, from a 16th century summation and translation of Anglo-Saxon laws to a famous tale of porcine practicality.

Gordon Russell, the Cotswolds School designer, is now famous for his austere designs of utility furniture. Unfortunately for Russell, this means that his work is often neglected and undersold by owners who do not realise his significance in the history of Arts and Crafts design.

THE Essex auctioneers Trembath Welch put together a sound 450-lot sale on 10 September to open the autumn season and were rewarded with generally solid prices and one happy surprise to offset one disappointment – an almost inevitable event in the currently hyper-selective market.

“It never gets any easier, it only gets more difficult,” a dealer told Guy Schooling before Sworders’ autumn sale on 18 September. Certainly the Essex auctioneer was ready to assume the worst after a summer so quiet he had to cancel a general sale in August, but the market is also known for its unpredictability, and a frantic two weeks at the beginning of September brought more than 500 lots through the doors.