Ewbank's

A pair of 19th century Venetian views by Italian artist Francesco Zanin proved to be the high point of a Silver Jubilee auction held by Ewbank auctioneers of Surrey on September 20 and provided their owner, a local Dorking family, with an unexpected financial bonus when they sold for multiples of their original estimates.

Just a month after their most successful sale ever, thanks to the consignment of an archive of Francis Bacon’s work, Woking auctioneers Ewbank’s have won another Bacon collection.

Surrey auctioneers Ewbank are now offering a live online bidding service and held their first such sale on July 7.

NEWLY refurbished rooms at Send in Surrey mean that Ewbanks will now be able to hold two general sales a month (on the first and third Thursdays) with quarterly sales of fine art and antiques.

PICTURES which belong to a very specific collecting area are frequently in much greater demand than those of comparable quality that lack esoteric appeal.

THESE two half-length images of women, right, could hardly be more different in date or technique, but their prices proved as uncannily similar as their poses when they came under the hammer at recent fine art auctions.

SEVERAL pieces of mahogany furniture from a dilapidated stables near Weybridge provided the core to this 544-lot auction at Ewbank Auctioneers, Woking on June 27 (15% buyer's premium).

THE antiques trade was hard hit last year and the Surrey auctioneers Ewbanks are finding that the current uncertain economic climate is stopping private vendors from consigning their property to sale.

Like most provincial auctioneers, Christopher Ewbank was rather apprehensive of the market prior to his October sale on 4 October at Send. “I was relieved really,” said Mr Ewbank after the sale where attendance was strong and the “furniture dealers were still out in force”.

UK: THE William and Mary cabinet on stand which, because of cleaning and restoration went at £8500 at Ewbanks' Surrey sale on December 9.

UK: THE table was hotly contested by top London dealers at Ewbank’s rooms in Send, Surrey on December 9, 1999, with Fulham Road dealer Michael Lipitch emerging as the top bidder at £58,000.

Ewbank, Send, March 25 Buyer’s premium: 10 per cent UK: An amusing, illustrated letter sent by the 16-year-old Edward Coley Burne Jones to his aunt Amelia on May 7, 1849, topped this sale with a London bid of £880.