Dec 18, 2017
It’s always nice to get a decent collection consigned for sale, and the latest we have had in really has made my Christmas. Put together over the years by a lady called Joyce Paretti, this stunning range of perfume bottles displays the tremendous levels of artistic talent and craftsmanship dedicated to creating these little jewels from the 17th century onwards.
Mostly just and inch or two long, so as to fit snugly into a pocket, these would have been carried everywhere, both as a means of making the owner smell nice, but also to help them overcome the often noxious odours that would have assaulted their nostrils as they made their way about town.
Made from silver, glass, enamel, porcelain and rock crystal, they are an ideal collectable, because they are so varied and attractive, have strong historic and social links and are small enough to allow a collector to build up a significant holding without the need to build an extension at home.
Each one unlocks a fascinating story as you research who made it and where it came from. My favourite from this selection? Probably the mid 18th century Derby porcelain perfume bottle and stopper fashioned as a tree with a striped cat pursuing two turtle doves up it.
Watch out for more to come form this collection in future sales.
Dec 11, 2017
As we all know, snow can be your friend or foe, depending on whether you are a ten-year-old hoping for an unexpected day off school or the parent desperate to make sure lessons go ahead.
For me though, when I looked out of the window on Monday to see the season’s first fall, despite the difficulties even a few inches of the stuff can cause in getting things and people to and from our Fernhurst saleroom, the beauty of the landscape was enhanced further by the effect this type of weather has had on the collectables and the auction market. From snowshoes and skates to early skiwear, sporting specialists can plough a furrow in this fairly narrow collecting field, but the area that interests me is the one that has a much wider appeal: ski posters.
Christie’s pioneered these sales from 1982 and have built a healthy following of wealthy collectors looking to decorate their ski chalets or homes. Now others have joined the fray, realising that these fabulous pieces of art appeal well beyond the traditional collecting fraternity.
Resorts – Gstaad, Davos, St Moritz – artists, subject matter, condition and age can all have an impact on values. The colour, dynamism and graphic quality of these pieces make them burst with life, and prices for the best now reach well into five figures. Still, compared with other markets, that is pretty affordable.
Dec 6, 2017
The recent Collector’s auction exceeded expectations; a combination perhaps, of being able to bid online (and therefore being accessible to all) but also there were some great bargains as well! Not least, the Louis Vuitton luggage collection. Such an iconic design. Anyone carrying one of these cases on holiday would look very elegant.
A large Louis Vuitton case, no. 1074290, Paris, with brass corners, hinges and lock, no. 290909, the lid opens to reveal a lift out clothes holder, complete with leather handle and leather luggage label complete with outer cover. Standing at 29ins long, 19.5ins wide, 9ins high, it fetched £2200. Also from the Louis Vuitton collection was a speedy 35 Damier Azur bag with padlock and keys, including dust bag which fetched £260.
Another iconic brand in the sale was Hermès. Famous for their timeless and colourful silk scarves, which fetch up to £600 new, unworn and boxed, they were selling with us from just £30. Do keep an eye on future sales for bargains such as these! Four designer silk scarves, vintage scarf and hat sold for £170, another small silk neck tie, boxed, fetched £80 with an estimate of £30-50 and other Hermès silk scarves, boxed, fetched from £90 through to £160, all with estimates of £40-60.
Other exciting items included an Everlast red boxing glove, signed by Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes, Ken Norton, Riddick Bowe, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Joe Frazier, Lennox Lewis and George Foreman. In a gilded frame and standing at 23ins x 16ins x 5ins deep and with an estimate of £250-500, it sold for £400.
A good silver gilt and enamel filigree shaped box and cover, decorated with panels of birds in coloured enamels. Impressed silver and 16cms high, it sold for £1100 against an estimate of £100-150.
Lastly, a Danish sterling silver Georg Jensen cigarette box with wooden interior with an estimate of £80-150, sold for £900.
Our last auctions of 2017 start with an Oriental auction on 13 December. Keep an eye out on our website for previews.
Dec 4, 2017
Three of the lots that came up in our first December sale brought to mind one of the greatest ‘might have been’ moments in sporting history. They were a framed boxing glove signed by Henry Cooper, another by Muhammad Ali, and a programme for a 1974 dinner in honour of Ali, signed by both boxers.
The pair fought each other twice, in 1963 and 1966, but it is the first bout that made history. Ali was 20lbs heavier and had a 4½in advantage on his reach, but it was Cooper who drew first blood in the first round with his aggressive punching.
Ali fought back and by the fourth round Cooper’s brow was bleeding heavily, but he famously lifted Ali from the canvas with a left hook, with the American only being saved by the ropes, which he slid down, and then the bell.
What came next remains one of the most controversial moments in boxing history. Ali’s trainer Angelo Dundee called the referee over to Ali’s corner to show him where the boxer’s glove had split. The interval had to be extended 20 seconds as they found new gloves, giving Ali more time to recover, before he went on to beat Cooper when the referee stopped the fight in the next round because of Cooper’s bleeding.
Had Dundee slashed the glove on purpose? We’ll probably never know. But without that delay, many think Cooper could well have KO’d his opponent.
Nov 28, 2017
As we turn into the home straight before Christmas, thoughts turn to Advent calendars and I have to say that this year has trumped all others for stretching the imagination and resorting to the ridiculous. The media have rightly been making quite a thing about the commercial exploitation of this corner of the festivities: Asda’s cheese calendar is just the beginning. What about the Edinburgh Gin calendar, complete with 25 miniatures for £100, or the Diptique limited edition calendar filled with skin and bodycare products, a snip at just £300? My favourite example of over-the-top nonsense was the one Porsche put on show in Harrods seven years ago: retail price $1m.
It’s all a far cry from the calendar’s rather restrained origins in Germany in the 19th century. Simple images posted behind the doors of a cardboard calendar dominated for decades until the first chocolate-filled calendars started to appear in the 1940s.
The market has now turned full circle, with reproductions of the traditional vintage German calendars available for sale.
Although there is quite a market in Christmas collectibles, Advent calendars remain a rather muted corner of it, but with the variety on offer now, especially some of the more unusual limited edition varieties, this is an area of collecting whose potential has yet to be fully exploited.
Nov 28, 2017
A good strong sale with two particular Lots flying out the door. Lots 136 & 256 did very well.. the first Lot 136 sold on the phone. Alonzo C Webb (1888-1975) American. An American City Skyline, possibly Chicago, mixed media, signed and dated 1950, 20” x 26”. Estimated at £400-£600, it fetched £3200. Lot 256 attributed to George Mullins (act.1756-1775) Irish. Study of an Old Man, seated in a Landscape, oil on canvas laid down, signed and dated ‘AD 1772’, Unframed, 26” x 20”. Estimated at £150-£250, it also went for £3200 to an internet buyer.
The next Paintings auction will be 20th December. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
Nov 20, 2017
On November 25, 1952 what has since become the world’s longest continuously running play in history opened for the first time at The Ambassadors Theatre in London’s West End. The world premiere of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap had taken place just over seven weeks earlier in Nottingham, but it was at The Ambassadors and then, from March 25, 1974, next door at The St Martin’s Theatre, where it continues to this day, that the play has enjoyed it unbroken run.
The production’s first star was Richard Attenborough, whose contractual arrangements meant that the programme billed him as appearing “By arrangement with the Boulting Brothers”, the successful duo who had discovered him and helped make his name in the 1948 film version of Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock and would continue to put him on the screen for the next decade.
The programme also promoted other theatrical productions, including Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier in The Sleeping Prince at the Phoenix Theatre and Trevor Howard in The Cherry Orchard at The Lyric, Hammersmith – Halcyon days for theatre indeed!
Occasionally one of these rare debut programmes comes onto the market. The original price was sixpence, or 2½p in new money. Now it is a very achievable £10 or so – still, a reasonable uplift of 40,000% over the intervening 65 years.
Nov 17, 2017
The Fine Antique auction on the 9 November saw some good results with some surprises. A good set of three lead garden figures, modelled as cherubs emblematic of earth, wind and water, on circular bases. Estimated at £500-700, they fetched £1100.
Estimated at £500-600, the ever popular Clarice Cliff bizarre “forest green” tea set, teapot and cover, milk jug, sugar basin and two cups and saucers went for £1100. A standing bronze from Sir William Hamo Thornycroft RA (1850-1925) British , 129 baluchis, wearing his medals, holding a rifle with bayonet in front of him sold for £5500 with an estimate of £2000-3000.
The clock section did well with a superb rare Moser of Paris brass carriage clock, with eight-day movement, triple dial with month and days, striking on a single bell, stamped Moser A. Paris, no. 9483, stamped on the movement and case, complete with carrying handle. Carrying an estimate of £600-800, it went for £1100. Also, a superb French 19th century gold, diamond and blue enamel bangle, made in France circa. 1890 and estimated at £500-800, sold for £1400.
A rare set of four early Dutch silver candlesticks, estimated at £2500-3000 sold for £3800.
More unusual was an early Fijian whale tooth necklace. Estimated at £500-700, it sold for £1300.
We will be running an auction of collectors’ items on 2 December. Please see the catalogue on our website nearer to the sale.
Nov 17, 2017
The recent Oriental sale in November saw items selling well. A 19th century framed Chinese kingfisher feather river landscape picture, the frame 33in x 25.5in sold for £4000.
Also, a Chinese famille rose porcelain butterfly vase, the base with a qianlong seal mark, 7.25in wide at widest point & 9.2in high sold for £3000. A good quality Chinese celadon glazed porcelain jar, the base with a yongzheng seal mark, 8.4in wide at widest point & 8.1in high sold for £30. An unusual Chinese yellow glazed oval porcelain bowl & cover, the base with a qianlong seal mark, 10.75in wide including handles & 9.75in high overall sold for £4000. A shallow Chinese jun ware ceramic tripod censer, 5.4in diameter at rim & 1.6in high sold for £2400. A good large 18th/19th century Chinese langyao type porcelain vase, 16.7in high sold for £4000.
From the Japanese selection, an unusual meiji period ivory okimono of a seated woman with a child, possibly Tokyo school, 7.75in high sold for £2000.
The next Oriental sale will be 13 December. Do please keep an eye on our website for the catalogue.
Nov 13, 2017
One of my favourite news stories of the past week concerned the discovery, after 128 years, of the remains of a grasshopper, which had been trapped in the paint of Vincent Van Gogh’s 1889 picture Olive Trees.
Rather like those gorgeous pieces of amber you occasionally see at auction, which trapped unrecognisable insects sometimes hundreds of millions of years ago as tree sap before fossilising, the discovery creates a seemingly direct link to a specific moment in time, compressing the years in between so that you can almost see and hear Vincent slapping the paint onto the canvas.
These direct connections are what many people look for when buying things at auction and explain the huge price differences between artworks described in the catalogue as ‘follower of’ (someone unidentified working in the style of a well-known artist at around the same time), ‘school of’ (a work of the time in the style of the artist), ‘studio of’ (a work from the artist’s studio or closely associated with them), ‘attributed to’ (probably, but not certainly, by the artist) and ‘autograph work’ (categorically by the artist).
In the art world, there is nothing quite like being close enough to touch the hand of the creator.
