Nov 6, 2017
I find it extraordinary that so few people outside of the art world have ever heard of CRW Nevinson. Who? I hear you ask: quite simply one of the most accomplished of war artists, whose mechanistic paintings of troops marching to the frontline and etchings conveying the desolation of the trenches are unequalled, to my mind.
As an early exponent of Vorticism, Nevinson’s take on what an exploding shell looked like still has the impact today that it had when first unveiled during the First World War. His depiction of a dead child lying face down in a bomb blasted street is arguably the most moving artistic image to have emerged from the conflict.
Nevinson was also reputedly the first artist to paint the view of the ground from an aeroplane. That he went on to create some of the most memorable images of New York in 1919 and beyond – see his etching ‘Looking through the Brooklyn Bridge’ for starters – is testament that here was no one-hit wonder.
Now A Dawn from 1914, one his oil paintings, is set to come to auction on November 21 with expectations of up to £1m or more. Look it up and then feast your eyes on more works by Nevinson. His was a rare talent indeed.
Oct 30, 2017
Few watches are as iconic as the Rolex Daytona – think at least £10,000, with prices rising to hundreds of thousands of pounds for the most coveted of all, a Paul Newman Daytona, a series of limited edition watches made as a tribute to the Hollywood Great, whose association with the brand stretches back decades. So what made competing bidders fight it out to $18 million (£13.6 million) for a Daytona in New York on October 26?
In short, the personal touch. This was the watch that Newman’s wife, Joanne Woodward, bought for him in 1969, during filming for Winning, in which he played an obsessive racing driver with Woodward as his onscreen wife.
The film gave Newman a taste for racing and he went on to take part in the Le Mans 24-hour race.
Newman had been injured in a motorcycle accident four years earlier and so Woodward had had the stainless steel watch inscribed Drive Carefully, Me.
When she bought him another new watch in 1984, Newman handed the Daytona Rolex to his daughter’s then boyfriend, who put it up for sale last month, with some of the proceeds heading for the Nell Newman Foundation, set up by Neman’s daughter.
A Hollywood idol, admired by men and loved by women; association with an iconic 1960s film linked to motor racing; a gift from a famous actress to her even more famous husband; and finally, an iconic brand in itself.
Auction consignments like this are once in a lifetime.
Oct 23, 2017
More than 400 years on, we still burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes on our November 5 bonfires as we remember the Catholic plot to blow up King James I and parliament.
The plot nearly succeeded after a tip-off, which led to the discovery of Fawkes himself in parliament’s cellars, did not result in the conspirator’s arrest as he convinced the authorities that he was simply laying in firewood for the winter. It was only on the second search that he was caught making his final preparations.
Had the 36 barrels of gunpowder exploded in such a confined space, there is little doubt that they would have flattened not just parliament, but a significant area around it, with huge loss of life.
Around three years ago the earliest known written account of what happened came up for auction in London with an estimate of £40,000-60,000. Written by Secretary of State Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, just four days after the plot was uncovered, the letter to Sir Ralph Winwood, the English ambassador at The Hague, includes a full account of the events. From this we can see how shocking and daring it all seemed at the time, and how that ensured a notoriety that would last throughout ensuing history.
Oct 18, 2017
Our recent sale of a Louis Vuitton leather box for £14,500 reminded me of how a simple idea can change the world. With Vuitton that simple idea was to change the shape of trunk lids from rounded to flat in the 1850s. While rounded lids allowed rainwater to run off, the trunks could not be stacked, so making the most of storage space on carriages, trains and ships was a problem.
Of course, Louis Vuitton’s success can be attributed to far more than this initial idea, but it is what got his brand going and it sparked many imitators.
In fact, such was the drive to pass other, lesser imitations off as Vuitton originals, even from the earliest days, that the company had to keep devising new branding to protect itself. First came the beige and brown stripes, then the Damier Canvas pattern with logo reading marque L. Vuitton déposée, and then the quatrefoils and flowers pattern, along with LV monogram, which largely did the trick.
Needless to say, the counterfeiters have struck back in recent years, but it says a great deal about the quality and standing of the originals that crooks put so much effort into creating imitations.
Oct 11, 2017
The excitement of this two-day sale was very much an extraordinary collection of Maori artefacts with an unbroken provenance dating back to their acquisition in 1837 by one of the earliest English missionaries to New Zealand.
The collection, is the remains of a larger shipment of artefacts sent back to England by Philip Hansen King (1813-80), son of John King, one of three lay missionaries sent on the first mission to New Zealand in 1814 under the direction of Samuel Marsden, the senior Anglican minister in New South Wales.
We received many pre-sale enquiries from the UK and overseas, as well as Radio New Zealand doing a big splash on this lovely story. People online and on the phone were all bidding for the individual Lots. Such was the enthusiasm of the bidders that one actually whooped with joy when he realised he had won the bid! It always makes this job fun and exciting when a bidding war ensues over something historical and with an interesting back story. The Maori collection, including Hei Tiki Green Nephrite and Lure Hooks, from early 19th century, fetched in excess of £48,000.
Some other highlights include an 18th Century two-division Tea Caddy inlaid with mother of pearl. With an estimate of £200-400, it fetched £3600. Also a small Louis Vuitton leather box, stamped Louis Vuitton, fetched a huge £14,500 with an estimate of £300-500.
On day two, The Marquis of Rockingham Silver, a superb collection of George II and early silver given to his chaplain Dr William Knowler as a gift in 1749, sold for £16,000.
Knowler, who was educated at St John’s College, Cambridge, graduated B.A. in 1720, M.A. in 1724, and LL.D. in 1728. On leaving Cambridge, he became chaplain to Thomas Watson Wentworth, then Lord Malton, who was created Marquis of Rockingham in 1746. Lord Malton had inherited the papers of his great-grandfather, Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford, and charged his chaplain with the task of publishing a selection from them. This appeared in 1739 under the title of ‘The Earl of Strafford’s Letters and Despatches,’ London, 2 vols. folio. They were selected, says Knowler, in the dedication he addressed to his patron, by Lord Malton himself, and published according to his instructions, in order to vindicate Strafford’s memory from “the aspersions of acting upon arbitrary principles, and being a friend to the Roman catholics”.
Also included in the sale was a silver and ivory paperknife, an inscribed gift from Oscar Wilde To Arthur Fish (his Editor). Dated 1890, it fetched £1100 plus premium.
The next Fine Antique sale will be 9th November. Details online nearer to the sale.
Oct 9, 2017
At first glance it seemed fairly ordinary: a plain blue-green porcelain bowl or shallow dish less than six inches across, the sort of thing that might go unnoticed on any shelf. So when it appeared at Sotheby’s on October 3, why did it take 20 minutes of furious bidding to sell, and why, when the hammer finally came down, did it do so at a record-setting $38m?
In many ways the answer is simply: rarity; in others it is quite complicated: the desire to own something aesthetically exquisite dating back centuries that embodies the finest Chinese craftsmanship and brings with it great prestige and honour.
The bowl in question is a Ru Guanyao brush washer dating to the North Song Dynasty (960-1127AD). It displays the highly desirable ‘ice crackle’ to its glaze that so many collectors seek and, perhaps most importantly, is a near-perfect example of porcelain from the almost mythical kilns of Ruzhou around 900 years ago, wares that were only manufactured for a period of about 20 years. So, pretty heady stuff.
The fact that something so intrinsically modest and simple can achieve such status, and the price to go with it, speaks volumes about the importance of art in history and the importance of the that history to a nation’s heritage. Long may that continue.
Oct 6, 2017
There were a few surprises at our October Oriental auction on the 4th. Japanese and Chinese Lots sold really well including a fine quality signed Japanese gold wire Cloisonne vase by Hayashi Kodenji, the silver foot rim with an impressed Jungin ‘pure silver’ mark and an inlaid maker’s mark to the base. Standing at 11.1in high overall on the stand and the vase itself 9.7in high. It fetched £5000 against an estimate of £2000-3000. Also a very fine quality signed Japanese gold wire cloisonne vase, the base with an engraved and onlaid silver-metal maker’s plaque and standing at 9in high sold for £6600 against an estimate of £2000-3000.
Also, a good early 20th century Japanese lined silver bowl, the base with a maker’s mark and a Jungin ‘pure silver’ mark, standing at 9.7in wise at widest point and 5.6in high sold for £1100.
In the Chinese section, a 20th century Chinese famille Rose porcelain plate by Zhang Song Mao, dated 1951, the base with a seal mark and 9.6in diameter, sold for £4000. Also a good quality late 19th/early 20th century Chinese Famille Rose rectangular porcelain plaque standing at 9.25in x 6.1in sold for £4600.
The next sale will be 8th November. Keep an eye out for previews and the catalogue nearer the sale on our website. For any enquiries regarding consignments, please call our main office on 01428 653727.
Oct 3, 2017
Next month sees the annual round of auctions, gallery shows and museum exhibitions that make up Asian Art in London. It’s a festival of culture focusing on the art – ancient and modern – from India, Cambodia, Korea, China, Japan and one or two other Far Eastern countries. With a rich and recorded heritage that predates the Romans in some parts, this field creates a fascinating historical focus of how humanity has developed through the ages.
Porcelain, terracotta, bronze, jade and ivory are just some of the materials used to fashion the most memorable objects from the Tang, Ming and Qing dynasties in China, while Japanese tradition gave rise to elaborately carved netsuke and ojime, as well as the luxuriously lacquered inro.
The London celebrations are large enough to attract collectors from all over the world, so it will come as no surprise that leading auction rooms outside of the capital – including ours at Fernhurst – time first-rate Asian art sales to coincide with them.
But it was Geneva that provided the first appetizer for the Asian art fest last week when a Chinese vase estimated at just 500 to 800 Swiss Francs took a hammer price of five million – that’s around £3.8m.
I’ve got my fingers crossed for our November offering.
Sep 25, 2017
Continuing the theme of what will make become the desirable collectables of the future, I came across an obscure but promising one in the past week: tax discs.
An acquaintance of mine used to own a moped and, many years ago, when he lived in London and the motorbike was parked outside his flat, a young lad stole the tax disc because he had managed to acquire a moped of his own but was too young to hold a licence and needed the disc to make his look legal. Needless to say, he was caught and dealt with.
In the meantime the victim of the crime decided that it was too risky to continue displaying the replacement disc, and so he filed it at home, ready to produce it if ever asked to do so by the authorities. He continued with this custom for a number of years, until he got rid of the moped.
So as not to damage the discs when filing them, using a hole punch, he left them attached to the original perforated sheet of paper, so they remained in all but mint condition and now he has a remarkable set of them. These must have become attractive collectors’ items since the abolition of the tax disc, and their auction value can only climb as the years go by.
Sep 18, 2017
No sooner had I put pen to paper on last week’s column, talking about Steve Jobs and his first ever computer taking £100,000 at auction, than the Science Museum in London launched a Twitter conversation about the history of Apple products, from the 1984 pre-production model, Mouse for Apple Macintosh, through the 1993 Apple Newton MessagePad, the 1998 iMac G3 to the 2003 Apple iPod and the 2007 iPhone launch to the 2010 iPad.
The Science Museum has them all and provides a fascinating study of the development of technology and its association to social development over the past 30 years and more.
If this is the attitude that the Science Museum has to these objects – presenting them as museum exhibits – then you can be sure that they will also make their impact on the world of collecting in years to come. Millions of iPhones may be circulating the globe as we speak, but as they get updated and the defunct ones disappear, eventually only a limited number will be left to become sought-after collectables. The development of mobile phone technology, as they morphed into handheld computers, thereby changing the way the world communicates and interacts socially, has been the biggest game changer of all. Expect it to be a force at auction as a whole new niche collecting area develops in the future.
