He was the descendent of Fred Green, a leading figure of the Scottish entertainment industry in the first half of the 20th century whose friends included Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford, and in his possession was a table that his great aunt and uncle had bought in the 1950s.
Housed in the Green's home, Craigie Hall, Glasgow, until their deaths in the 1960s was a similar (but unsigned) mid-19th century Italian micromosaic table with a giltwood base and a circular top, depicting the same eight views of sites from Italian cities to a striking black marble and malachite ground. To the centre was a roundel of Romulus and Remus.
Entered for sale with an estimate of £60,000 to £90,000 on September 22, the Craigie micromosaic table, as it was dubbed, attracted telephone bidders from the UK, the US and throughout Europe, as well as bidders in the room before it was sold for £98,000 (plus 15/10% buyer's premium). It was bought by dealer Corfield Morris acting for a private client.
You wait years for someone to consign a micromosaic table, then…
FOLLOWING the Antiques Trade Gazette’s coverage of the sale of a micromosaic table signed by Michelangelo Barberi for £250,000 at Dreweatt Neate’s Donnington Priory rooms in January – still the highest price achieved for an item of furniture in a UK saleroom so far this year – the Newbury firm received a call from a gentleman in Scotland.