Oxford

Focus on two centres and a Cheshire fair as dealers and organisers encourage visitors

List of deaths is timely reminder that outbreaks are nothing new

Textbook watercolour by the British artist takes one of his higher prices in recent years.

The so-called Hornby Castle Chair, a 4ft 7in (1.38m) high oak open armchair c.1580-1600, sold for £35,000 plus premium at the latest Oak Interior sale at Bonhams in Oxford.

The Oak Interior sale at Bonhams in Oxford on February 19 included two substantial private collections consigned for sale from the US.

While furniture and books fully justified its title, The Oxford Library Sale at Mallams (22.5% buyer’s premium) was led by a surprise star: a rather lowly regarded gesso bust of the sort that would have been a minor decoration to such a room.

Two Frances Hodgkins (1869-1947) gouache watercolours painted during her artistic prime were taken to multi-estimate sums at separate UK salerooms in the same week.

Cotswolds steel masterworks bring £50,000.

A rare work by William Lambarde, the antiquarian, writer on legal subjects and author of the first county history, A Perambulation of Kent of 1576, was another highlight from the library of the late Eric Stanley, professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford (see reports in previous ATGs).

A crayon portrait by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82) surfaced at Oxford saleroom Mallams (22.5% buyer’s premium) together with another of the sitter’s father.

Oxford on High has been presented with the antiques retailer of the year award for Oxfordshire by Corporate LiveWire, a quarterly magazine for business professionals and the corporate finance sector.

A first portion of the library of the late Eric Gerald Stanley, a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University, featured in a recent auction at Mallams.

The first printed copy of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica was published in Strasbourg as early as c.1475 with subsequent versions printed in Vienna (1513), Strasbourg again (1500), Haguenau (1506), Paris (1544) and Antwerp (1550).

A late Victorian diamond cluster necklet with an estimated total weight of 14.4cts sold in its original fitted case for £10,500 at Richard Winterton (20% buyer’s premium), Lichfield.

Peter Dingley (1923-2018), who died last year aged 95, is a name synonymous with the best of modern British craft. David Whiting, author of 'Modern British Potters & Their Studios' (2009), described him as “a remarkable member of the small band of post-war pioneering gallerists who supported British ceramics”.

Bonhams’ Oxford office is to reopen as a saleroom for two auctions in the autumn season.