Auction Reports

The great Hungarian love affair with Zsolnay Pec ceramics goes on, most recently witnessed in the East Sussex rooms of Burstow & Hewett (15% buyer’s premium) when 27 lots were offered.

More down to earth than the Bentley Speed Sixes and MG TDs of the classic car world, this 1961 GPO van nevertheless was a major draw at Biddle & Webb (20% buyer’s premium) in Birmingham.

A good weight and a good name helped this London 1890 embossed silver punch bowl to double the lower estimate at TW Gaze (18% buyer’s premium).

Billed as a collection, possibly better described as a hoard, the contents of boxes stored in warehouse units were “the magic ingredients for auction goers” according to Dreweatts’ deputy chairman James Nicholson.

Upholstered Victorian armchairs not being the most in-demand of auction lots at present, the £100-150 estimate of a pair offered at Greenslade Taylor Hunt (19.5% buyer’s premium) did not seem overly pessimistic.

Marked CRA and dated 1895, a set of three silver spoons offered at auction represent a key point in the career of one of the giants of the Arts & Crafts movement, Charles Robert Ashbee (1863-1942).

Designed by Bodil Kjaer, this 1960s oak, palisander and steel ‘executive desk’ offered at Chiswick Auctions (23% buyer’s premium) is a classic example of the huge influence of Scandinavian architects on Western post-war design.

More glamorous sales will take place this year, but a week of four quality auctions at Lawrences (22% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne provided some solid reassurance about the state of the middle market.

Promoted as including the contents from a Derbyshire country home, the three-day pre-Christmas sale at Hansons (17.5% buyer’s premium) was more notable for two unusual collections and pieces which came in after a valuation day.

Evidence of the shrewd taste of student entertainments officers at Warwick University back in the Sixties came at Batemans’ (20% buyer’s premium) sale at Stamford in the form of two concert posters.

And still the lofts and attics of UK homes play their part in the lucrative China trade… A c.1800 Imperial yellow cushion cover was one example offered at Trevanion & Dean (19% buyer’s premium) in Whitchurch.

“Buyers want to get back in action after the Christmas holiday,” said Darryl Kirk, saleroom manager at Unique Auctions (17.5% buyer’s premium), after 95% of the 1300 lots offered on New Year’s Day got away.

This ‘Goliath’ carriage clock, below, was offered at Greenslade Taylor Hunt (19.5% buyer’s premium) in Taunton.

Good times ahead were predicted by Guy Schooling, chairman of Sworders (23% buyer’s premium), after the January 9 Homes & Interiors sale at Stansted Mountfitchet which was topped by a WAS Benson brass mantel clock.

Four unusual collections caught the eye, if not always the cash, at Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer's premium).

On the basis that it’s never too late for chocolate, or indeed beer, a belated report from BBR’s (15% buyer’s premium) sale of advertising memorabilia at Elsecar.

Two of the first sales of 2018 suggest that toasts to the future can be drunk from half-full, rather than half-empty, Georgian rummers.

A gentleman retires to his designated smoker’s chair, picks up his meerschaum pipe and Dunhill lighter and puffs away contentedly by his hearth… a vanished scenario in the UK today but recreated in the antiques world in these three items from December auctions.

Whatever chaos faces hundreds of thousands of commuters on the railways as we enter the New Year, the better-ordered world of model trains steams on to continued success.

The studio ceramics offered at the Mallams Oxford (20% buyer’s premium) Design, Modern British and Post-War Art sale were the major talking point (see ATG No 2324), but furniture by major late 19th century and early 20th century makers also made an impact.