Auction Reports

An extraordinary group of garden statuary, unseen for decades, was offered for sale recently at Summers Place Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) in Billingshurst, West Sussex.

The October 9-10 sale at Kingham & Orme (25% buyer’s premium) in Evesham included this rare pot lid inscribed Genuine Bears Grease.

This large silver arm badge was awarded to a late 19th century winner of Doggett’s Coat and Badge Race – the oldest rowing race in the world, held from London Bridge to Cadogan Pier since 1715.

Not all early 18th century oak clocks were restricted to a simple style. There were provincial customers who requested more grandeur and country casemakers who could accommodate such requests.

For the second time in as many sales, Sworders’ (25% buyer’s premium) 20th Century Design auction on October 13 included a ‘microgauze’ wall hanging by the British artist-weaver Peter Collingwood (1922-2008).

Printed volumes and manuscripts contain many rare works and unusual material

The Decades of Design sale at Fieldings (24% buyer’s premium inc VAT) in Stourbridge on October 15-16 included 52 works from the family of Albert Wainwright (1898-1943). He was a Castleford artist who trained at the Leeds School of Art in 1914.

Bonhams’ new-format Design sale in London on October 14 was topped by Jean Dunand’s 'Les Biches' (the hinds), a lacquered wood folding screen, c.1926.

The latest British & Continental Ceramics & Glass Auction at McTear’s (24% buyer’s premium) was topped by 'La Modista Il Cappellino', a 14in (35cm) Lenci figure.

While Old Masters were dominating proceedings at Woolley & Wallis’ early September sale, a fortnight earlier it was Modern British art that was turning heads in Salisbury.

This bakelite and electroplated cocktail shaker is from the Master Incolor series made for sale at the Wilson and Gill on Regent Street in the 1930s.

The most desirable of the varied wares produced by the small ceramics factory established by Vilmos Zsolnay (1828-1900) in the south-west Hungarian town of Pecs are those created after the 1890s.

A recent sale at Byrne’s (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Chester included 22 lustre wares by the Staffordshire art potter and chemist Bernard Moore.

More than 700 lots of Decorative Arts and Design spanning the 19th through to the early years of this century were offered for sale by Woolley & Wallis (25/12% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury over two days.

The Woolley & Wallis sale on October 6 included 36 lots by the Birmingham Arts & Crafts jeweller George Edward Hunt that had come by descent from his family. They had featured in an exhibition held at Bonhams in 2006.

This William de Morgan six-tile panel from c.1880 will feature in a two-day sale, Decorative Arts: Design since 1860, at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh on November 2-3.

Two pieces of bronze sculpture from the Woolley & Wallis sale on October 6-7

Topping a 360-lot, £242,000 single-owner collection of Martinware and Moorcroft at Kingham & Orme (23% buyer’s premium) was a Robert Wallace Martin grotesque bird.

This textbook William and Mary longcase clock is from the workshop of Joseph Windmills, one of the finest clockmakers in late 17th century London.

Coadestone urns to this design were a personal favourite of company founder Eleanor Coade herself.