Auction Reports

It was the last flickerings of the dynasty which took salvage from the demolition site and put it back into the drawing room.

Art Deco bronze and ivory figures continue to do well – despite the imminent legislation that could render some of them illegal to sell.

“The best piece in the sale,” enthused auctioneer Richard Harrison in reference to a Meiji Kazaridana cabinet sold for £11,000 at Mitchells (20% buyer’s premium) at Cockermouth on June 13-15.

In what can be a doleful time for Doulton, encouraging words about the factory’s output from auctioneer Geoff Shepherd at ceramics specialist Kingham & Orme (22% buyer’s premium).

Less well-known than other daring young women in their flying machines, Peggy Salaman, or rather a bronze bust of her, emerged from a Mayfair basement to take off in a Suffolk saleroom.

The morality laws of pre-liberal Ireland added to the allure and market value of this Goldfinger poster offered by Richard Winterton (17.5% buyer’s premium).

Putting a third major collection of highly specialist and highly priced material onto the market within little over three years might seem to be asking too much of a limited number of wealthy enthusiasts.

The 195-lot collection of mask netsuke amassed by Swiss entrepreneur Peter Müller met with mixed success when offered by Matthew Barton (24% buyer’s premium).

Two notable single-owner collections, augmented by items from the round of Oriental art sales, made spring a bumper crop in the specialist world of fans.

Catalogued as Anglo-Indian but probably Indo-Portuguese, this ivory, tortoiseshell and white metal casket, below, was a box of delight for the vendor.

Advertising and souvenir fans from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries received a mixed reception at the April 10 Special Auction Services sale at Newbury devoted to works collected by the late Martin Willcocks.

As regimental silver, the Victorian centrepiece shown below qualified to be part of the Militaria, Coins & Medals sale at Lawrences (22% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne and, as a memento of the gallant 9th (The Queen’s Royal) Lancers, it swept the field.

Results for Kakiemon and Meiji metalwork underline stronger market for Asia’s ‘second tier’

Hard-paste figures of Russian ethnic characters and workers have appeared at English auctions on a number of occasions in recent years (ATGs passim), generally to keen interest from the Motherland and eastern Europe.

It was only a matter of time before a treasure from the hot new British ceramics market emerged out of nowhere and onto the rostrum in the long tradition of boom areas.

Individually, watches which the War Office commissioned from 12 Swiss makers during the Second World War are not as highly rated as other military watches – but as a set they are a holy grail for British collectors.

Echoes of Lincolnshire’s history in the hugely lucrative late medieval wool trade, this wool weight, below, probably from the 16th century, was the star item at John Taylors’ (18% buyer’s premium) appropriately named Wool Mart auction rooms in Louth.

In the early development of motion pictures, this Kinora viewer, below, was the high end of the hugely popular ‘flip-book’ film machines.

It has been a generally encouraging spring at the UK rostrum. A latest look back at half-a-dozen auctions at major rooms reveals strong demand across the board of interests, and across the centuries to near the present day.

The best of the furniture from the contents of Faringdon House went to a Christie’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) Interiors sale, but perhaps the more interesting items from the 18th century Oxfordshire manor were handled by Wiltshire saleroom Kidson-Trigg (20% buyer’s premium).