Auction Reports

Providing a stern test of the resolve of cricket enthusiasts, a Victorian loving cup was the unexpected star of Michael J Bowman’s (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale at Chudleigh.

Dealer’s collection makes up first single-owner sale run by former Christie’s expert.

Having produced only 700-800 works in his short-lived career, Gilbert Marks (1861-1905) is not among the best-known silversmiths of his generation but was considered one of the foremost craftsmen of his day.

Among the most desirable of all needlework samplers are those associated with pupils at the Ackworth School, founded as a co-educational boarding school in 1779 by the Quaker physician John Fothergill and still thriving today.

Iconic names in the worlds of glass and ceramics starred in Kingham & Orme’s (20% buyer’s premium) wide-ranging March 1 sale at Evesham.

Having stood in the George IV pub in Workington since the 19th century, a mahogany penny slot machine made its last public appearance at Cumbrian auction house Mitchells (20% buyer’s premium).

Whatever it may be, someone, somewhere will be avidly collecting it.

Silver across five centuries caught the eye at provincial sales in February.

Never wholly out of demand since top Victorian upholsterer Howard & Sons began producing furniture from its Soho premises, these built-for-comfort sofas and armchairs continue to excel whenever offered at auction.

The wealth of material brought back to Britain from the days of the East India Company was illustrated at John Nicholson’s (24% buyer’s premium) sale when four Indo-Portuguese or Anglo-Indian tortoiseshell and ivory works were consigned by different vendors.

This early 18th century walnut chest of drawers offered at Rowley’s (22.5% buyer’s premium) Ely rooms on February 16 had plenty going for it including small size at 2ft 8in (81cm) wide, a crossbanded top and a brushing slide.

Underlined by a £65,000 bid for a table cabinet, the attraction of Indo-Portuguese furniture – that combines familiar European forms with the exotic lure of the East – is as strong today as it was in centuries past.

Rather sparsely catalogued, this unusual 14in (36cm) Lalique glass dish with a lovebirds design had emerged from a local unpaid storage unit into Hannam’s (23% buyer’s premium) February 18-20 sale in Selborne. Given a here-to-sell estimate of £150-200, it took £4200.

Some buyers regard sales of dealers’ stock as a minus on the grounds that the lots have been ‘seen’. Others view them as a plus, reckoning the material has already been the choice of an expert.

Travelling from Glasgow to the south of England courtesy of a commission bid, this Hornby-Dublo train EDG 7 tank goods set, right, went at 10 times the lower estimate at McTear’s (24% buyer’s premium) sale on February 1.

The plethora of single-collection sales at the start of the year was not at the expense of old-fashioned auctions offering good-quality offerings across the range of dealing and collecting – such as the Winter Fine Arts sale at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) of Dorchester.

The sale at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (plus 21% buyer’s premium) on January 29 – an event dominated by the multi-estimate performance of a Qianlong mark vase in the Ming taste sold at £460,000 (see ATG No 2378) – also included a hardwood (probably olivewood), bone and mother-of-pearl inlaid model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

What seems to have been an overdue clear-out at Monmouth Trading Standards department led to half a dozen lots of imperial weights and measures being consigned to Stroud Auctions (18% buyer’s premium).

Precisely four months on from a flood inundating its saleroom, Carmarthen auction house Peter Francis (20% buyer’s premium) enjoyed a literal and metaphorical day in the sunshine on February 13.

Regarded in their time as examples of the finest cabinet-making rather than simply reproductions, good 19th century French revivalist furniture remains in demand.