Auctioneers

A LOCAL estate provided the Thames Valley firm Bourne End Auction Rooms (12% buyer’s premium) with some fine lots for sale on August 4.

A DOMINIC Winter sale of July 21 included a collection of Victorian bookbindings from the library of the late Dr Nigel Temple.

PICTURED here are two outstanding pieces of provincial silver sold in the country during August.

THESE two superb pieces of Victorian silver proved flagship lots for two south of England salerooms in July.

IS there currently a better performing area of the ceramics market than Beswick farm animals? Aided by a proliferation of books and guides and an enviably large collecting base that includes a loyal following within a nostalgic farming community, prices have seen some dramatic acceleration in recent years.

SCULPTURE, which accounted for a quarter of Tajan's (20.33% buyer's premium) August 3-4 sale, fared better than the pictures, with two thirds of the 18 lots finding a taker, although Le Créateur, a small Rodin bronze that began proceedings, fell stone dead – bought in at €15,000 against an estimate of €20,000-30,000.

Originality and patina are key factors in the price of oak furniture. Accordingly, it was no surprise to see the trade chase this austere George III elm cricket table at Richard Winterton (12.5% buyer’s premium) of Burton-on-Trent on July 28. Entered by a Birmingham client, the table, with its galleried undertier was in fine original condition with no later adaptations and the timber had acquired a good rich patina. It doubled the pre-sale estimate to bring £950.

WHEN Oscar Wilde left Reading prison, Reggie Turner presented him with the gentleman’s black leather travelling or dressing case, seen right.

THE three-session, 630-lot jewellery section of Tajan's (20.33% buyer's premium) August 3-4 sale, with a chirpy attendance of 80-100 throughout, met a more convincing response than the Modern art, bringing €2.7m (£1.8m) hammer, including an aftersale €145,000 (£96,670) for a grey-gold ring with a fancy yellow, rectangular 29.57-carat diamond (estimate €200,000-250,000).

THIS exquisite George III silver gilt inkstand, right, by John Houle was commissioned for the phenomenally wealthy William Harry Vane (1766-1842), the first Duke of Cleveland, whose estate and personal assets were valued well in excess of £2m.

A NEW freelance auctioneer service has been launched in the UK and has been taking its first commissions.

ONE of the pioneers of the vogue for Japanese and Chinese design in the 1870s, Joseph Theodore Deck was also one of the first 19th century potters to explore Isnik floral designs and colour schemes. It was during his efforts to replicate the Turkish palette that he perfected the turquoise glaze that came to be known as bleu de Deck, or Deck blue.

DESPITE having success in his day, it seems a major oversight that marine artist Neville Sotheby Pitcher (1889-1959) does not make it into the specialist reference books such as E.H.H. Archibald’s The Dictionary of Sea Painters.

LONDON-based Comic Book Postal Auctions hold several auction highs for British comics including, earlier this year, a world record £12,100 for The Beano No. 1. However, that remarkable price could well be threatened by this copy of The Dandy No. 1.

JUNE was a busy month for Wellers (15% buyer's premium) who hosted an 819-lot antique sale on June 12 in addition to a 4000-lot two-day architectural auction held off the premises at Enfield’s Reclaim Centre on June 11-12.

DURING an otherwise routine probabe valuation in a village near Saffron Walden, John Foster from Stansted Mountfitchet auctioneers Sworders discovered a box of coins tucked away in the back of a cupboard. On closer inspection he found an album of East Anglian banknotes which had probably been collected in the 1950s and 1960s for only a few pounds.

OFFERED as part of a large sports sale held by Lyon & Turnbull of Edinburgh on July 12 was the angling and sporting library of Major Barton William-Powlett (1871-1953) of Cadhay in Devon.

FOLLOWING the sale of a Charlotte Rhead wall plate for an unexpected £2900 in October last year, the Ilkley, West Yorkshire salerooms of Andrew Hartley received another rare design by the industrial ceramicist for their sale of August 11-12.

JACQUES Tajan is set to quit Tajan S.A., the firm he founded in 1994, over disagreements with the firm’s new owner Rodica Seward.

THE most expensive single football programme in a June 20-21 sale held by Knights was a 1921 FA Cup Final programme, right, for the game at Stamford Bridge in which Spurs beat Wolves 1-0. It sold for £2400.