Tennants

IN a May 18 sale held by Tennants of Leyburn, a copy of the 1902, first trade edition of The Tale of Peter Rabbit, bearing a neat inscription that was added 90 years later, was lotted with a copy of Jack and the Beanstalk in English hexameters by Hallam Tennyson and illustrated by Randolph Caldecott [1886?] and sold for £1000.

IN April 1912, Miss Lenox-Conyngham was travelling with three relatives from Southampton to Cherbourg, but though this was just a short channel crossing, she decided that it was worthwhile dashing off a letter to a nephew on the ship’s notepaper.

Despite the unpredictable trading conditions of the last 12 months, Tennants posted record trading figures for 2003. Aided by a bumper £1.62m autumn catalogue sale, total sales at The Auction Centre, Leyburn from January to December 2003 were £8.44m (not including premium), a substantial improvement upon the previous year when the North Yorkshire operation posted hammer sales of £7.4m.

North Yorkshire auctioneers Tennants, who bought the Heathcote Ball name earlier this year, are to open a consignment office in Leicester this month but have no plans to hold auctions in the Midlands.

As the many people in the trade who remember Joan Eyles will know, the Yorkshire dealer was a cat enthusiast. So when pieces from her own collection were offered at Tennants’ Leyburn rooms on 17-18 July it was no surprise to see the occasional accent on the feline.

A number of ivories closed the Oriental ceramics section at Tennants’ sale with some memorable results. A 143/4in (37.5cm) double-handled basket and cover from Canton c.1860, carved with phoenixes and figures in pavilions, made a five-times estimate £2500 and more surprises came among ten Japanese ivories such as an 81/2in (22cm) one-piece carving of a farmer looking at an empty pumpkin cage, a cicada on his head, which made £4000 against printed expectations of £500-700.

FOLLOWING the tragic death of John Ball in an accident last year, the future of his auction firm Heathcote Ball has been secured in a deal with Tennants.

ONE of the most bizarre and unexpected results at Tennants’ sale in North Yorkshire on 21-22 December involved a collection of more than 200 19th century marbles, a selection of which are shown right.

THE jewellery and vertu at Tennants’ sale was led by a pair of 2ct diamond ear studs at £9200 but more eye-catching among the vertu was this forerunner of the Swiss Army knife, right.

THE best seller at Tennants’ sale on November 22-23 in the Yorkshire Dales was consigned by a Yorkshire family with connections to the famous silversmith who made it.

THE Top lot in this North Yorkshire sale at Tennants on 18 October appeared very early on in the proceedings, when, as part of the opening art and architecture section of the sale, a copy of Humphrey Repton’s Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening was sold for £6000.

There are some who think that the people who collect the cat paintings of Louis Wain (1860-1939) are as mentally unbalanced as the artistic imagination that created them, but there is no gainsaying the extraordinary prices that Wain continues to fetch in the salerooms.

There was the familiar wide mix and flash of quality at this Dales auctioneers’ weekly sale, where the top price came from a piece over the Pennines – an 18th century yew wood dresser base that had originally graced a pub in Blackpool.

UK: TURNOVER figures posted by provincial auctioneers for the year January to December 1999 revealed a turnaround in the positions of the top two firms.