Cheltenham

Brought back to England by 19th century travel writer Richard Ford, a carved alabaster relief of the Madonna watching over Christ was the outstanding lot from a Gloucestershire country house offered at Mallams Cheltenham (22.5% buyer’s premium).

The recent Mallams (22.5% buyer’s premium) live online sale of Chinese, Japanese and Islamic art in Cheltenham included Chinese works on paper and textiles from a relative of Katherine Talati (1922-2015).

Two institutions dominated bidding for the notebooks and correspondence of a significant Regency period female author at the Cotswold Auction Company in Cheltenham last week.

More refined items are available in Chorley’s Cotswolds Country House sale in Prinknash Abbey on November 19-20 but few will attract more attention than this rare survivor from the early 1940s: a roll of loo paper featuring satirical cartoons of characters from Nazi Germany.

Underlining the market move from antique furniture to 20th century craftsman design, a 1982-83 chest of drawers set a record for a work by Alan Peters at the Modern British Living sale at Mallams (22.5% buyer’s premium) in Cheltenham.

The fitted interior of this William & Mary casket, below, was later but its fine brass-bound marquetry exterior with hidden lock mechanism made it the most eye-catching lot at Mallams’ (22.5% buyer’s premium) auction in Cheltenham on June 6.

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.

A mahogany longcase clock by Thomas Mudge (1715-94) is priced at £45,000 from Cheltenham dealer Tobias Birch.

This painting of a flower market in Paris (below) by the Australian artist Ethel Carrick-Fox (1872-1952) took top honours at The Cotswold Auction Company (20% buyer’s premium) in Cheltenham on November 14.

A collection of tobacco leaf pattern Chinese export porcelain surpassed all expectations to sell for a combined £116,000 at Mallams Cheltenham (20% buyer’s premium).

A copy of the 1925, Hogarth Press first of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway attracted a great deal of competition in a Cotswold Auction Company (20% buyer’s premium) sale of October 3 and finally sold at £18,000.

ATG’s weekly selection of items on sale at auctions and dealerships.

Conscious that Art Nouveau Daum glassware has been bringing renewed interest of late, auctioneer Catrin Hampton was quickly in touch with potential buyers – particularly Americans – when a table lamp was brought into the Cheltenham rooms of Chorley’s (20% buyer’s premium).

Mark Skipper of Cheltenham Rare Books talks about opening a shop, travelling as a dealer and the importance of fairs.

With the major names of the pioneers beyond the purses of most admirers of Cotswolds School furniture, works by Sir Gordon Russell are steady sellers and 16 pieces offered at Mallams (20% buyer’s premium) all found buyers on March 16.