Auctioneers

Irish art market makes a sedate journey back to strength as local buyers dominate.

ATG asked practitioners to explain the ins and outs of this increasingly popular auction format.

Ceramics commemorating the coronation of Edward VIII are less rare than often supposed, having been produced in abundance before the coronation was aborted. Most bring relatively small sums.

Featuring in the same two-day auction as a £7000 cache of Beatrix Potter ephemera found in a Cumbrian Victorian villa which had made national headlines, this less-heralded sofa impressed at 1818 Auctioneers (17.5% buyer’s premium).

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period June 13-19, 2019. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

‘Boxing Badgers’ is one of just two known occasions when the celebrated taxidermist Peter Spicer (1839-1935) ventured into the strange world of the anthropomorphic tableau.

In the 1950s French designer Raymond Cohen and his firm Cohray were producing a range of ultra-modern furniture that – although made for the machine age – were all put together by hand.

The resurgent interest in quality Japanese material and the slower revival of English furniture were both evident in a cabinet on stand sold at West Sussex auction house Toovey’s (24.5% buyer’s premium).

Bearing a thumbprint on the title-page – along with a note by a secretary, Susan Macey, witnessing it as genuine – a 1988 UK edition of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief of History of Time… was estimated at £200-400 but sold for £3000 in a May 30 sale.

The success of timed online auctions for London’s big auction houses is putting the format on the map for other salerooms too.

As the battle for the ‘middle market’ heats up, the London auction scene today offers visitors a wider choice of items to buy and more places to bid for them.