Chorley's

A consignment of furniture from the medieval Eastington Hall, Worcestershire, boosted Chorley’s (20% buyer’s premium) latest sale in Prinknash Abbey, Gloucestershire.

By the 1980s, Thomas Mercer of St Albans had made almost a third of all chronometers in history – including that used by Ernest Shackleton to navigate his men to Elephant Island and eventual rescue during the Trans-Arctic Expedition of 1914.

The series of Victorian carriage clocks by James McCabe – the son of a Belfast clockmaker of the same name who came to London in the 1770s and worked at the Royal Exchange from 1804 – are typically beautifully made with exemplary twin fusee striking movements.

A watercolour of a thoroughbred racehorse auction appeared at Chorley’s (20% buyer’s premium) of Prinknash Abbey Park, Gloucestershire, on May 21 – 123 years to the day since it had itself last sold at auction.

A large oil on panel map by MacDonald Gill celebrating the presence of stationer WH Smith on the British high street in the 1920s was hammered down at £50,000 in Gloucestershire.

As featured on the cover of ATG No 2377, more treasures associated with the ‘Tiger of Mysore’, Tipu Sultan, are scheduled for auction in March at the Antony Cribb sale.

Deemed a little ostentatious in some circles, tiaras have enjoyed a surge in popularity in recent years, particularly in Russia and the Baltic states where jeans and a diamond fascinator are de rigueur at informal high-society events.

Portrait miniatures and sporting pictures were chief among the solid sellers in a traditional assemblage of paintings at Chorley’s (20% buyer’s premium) Country House sale in Gloucestershire on January 29.

Nine centuries after it first became a thriving art form, Limoges enamel ware remains a popular choice as evidenced by a tazza offered by Chorley’s (20% buyer’s premium).

An intriguing portrait by an unidentified hand of a Royal Navy admiral in a wig and blue gilt braided uniform was a star entry at Cotswold saleroom Chorley’s (20/15/12.5/10% buyer’s premium).

A selection of highlights from the Chorley's auction on July 24-25 and the Tennants sale on July 21 (also see main Auction Reports story this edition).

Private bidders were overtaken as dealers found warmth in the best traditional furniture and chattels offered at auction.

It has been a generally encouraging spring at the UK rostrum. A latest look back at half-a-dozen auctions at major rooms reveals strong demand across the board of interests, and across the centuries to near the present day.