Auction Reports

Headline stratospheric results should not put collectors off, as a London auction underlines.

Two collections assembled since the late 1960s enthuse a fresh generation of buyers.

One of the best pieces of early oak at spring provincial sales was an17th century carved oak mural livery cupboard sold at Henry Adams (20% buyer’s premium) of Chichester.

Illustrated below is one of seven lots of Dutch ‘white metal ’ miniature tableware and furniture entered into a weekly general sale at Gorringe’s (21% buyer’s premium).

The furniture market continues to enjoy its occasional moments in the sun. During The Pedestal’s (25% buyer’s premium) sixth sale at Moor Park, Hertfordshire, on April 30 a George III carved mahogany octagonal tripod table (estimate £12,000-18,000) sold for £24,000.

Rusty, dusty and damaged, but bearing the magic of Marklin, a pre-First World War toy train emerged from the garage at a local house clearance. It starred in a collectors sale at the Cumbrian saleroom of 1818 Auctioneers (20% buyer’s premium inc VAT).

After more than 50 years as a designer for international stamps and banknotes printer Waterlow & Sons, Leonard Douglas Fryer (1891-1965) retired to enjoyable obscurity at his home in Ilford.

Catalogued as ‘exceptional’, this farmhouse refectory table fulfilled the auctioneer’s adjective in more than one way at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) sale in Dorchester on April 26.

Intricate representation labelled as a Royal Navy vessel has French prisoner-of-war origin.

Catalogued as ‘Art Nouveau… manner of Charlotte Rhead’, this pair of tube-lined tiles went at 10 times the estimate at Trevanion & Dean’s (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale in Whitchurch.

Target of a London silver specialist, this pair of late Victorian silver fluted vases was the best-seller at East Sussex auction house Burstow & Hewett (20% buyer’s premium).

Topped by an eight-times estimate £19,500 Momoyama ‘Namban’ cabinet (ATG No 2391), Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood’s (21% buyer’s premium) sale in Exeter on April 16 had other estimate-busting lots from abroad.

Almost wholly reliant on slavery, the tobacco industry was the subtle target of British Abolitionists 50 years before Britain outlawed slavery and nearly a century before the American Civil War.

Troubling subjects to today’s society as they may be, promotional materials for tobacco, alcohol, chocolates and petrol from the 19th and early 20th centuries remain a popular choice for collectors.

With ‘on the premises’ country house contents sales now so rare, the more usual practice is for the better pieces to be removed to saleroom bases.

This trio of clocks – all classic collectors’ pieces – went well above estimate at spring sales.

Despite the general controversy about the material – one that has momentarily taken a back seat as Brexit eats parliamentary time – an exceptional ivory work of art still has the capacity to impress in the saleroom.

Detailed down to pneumatic tyres, knock-off hub caps and rack-and-pinion steering, the clockwork toy of Alfa Romeo’s P2, the world-beating racing car between 1924-30, was produced by CIJ (Compagnie Industrielle du Jouet) from 1924-35.

Something of a roll call for the great and good across the British 19th-20th century arts scene, Lyon & Turnbull’s (25% buyer’s premium) Decorative Arts: Design Since 1860 sale included such names as George Washington Jack, Sir Alfred Gilbert, Christopher Dresser, William de Morgan and Robert Bartlett.

In the proud tradition of UK provincial auction houses, the 2000-lot, three-day sale at Mitchells (20% buyer’s premium) offered a world of artefacts from way beyond its Lakeland base of Cockermouth.