20 29th May 2010

auction reports

Regions find Chinese market far from jaded

A COLLECTION of 18th century Chinese jades contributed handsomely to the sale

conducted by Mallams (17.5% buyer’s

premium) in Oxford on April 21. Most of the seven lots carried documentation indicating they were last on the market in the mid to late ’60s when bought by the vendor’s family from Spink and Sons, London. The two best-selling lots were both bought by the same London dealer. The Qianlong pale celadon vase carved with lotus, 53

/4

in (14.5cm) high, was

purchased (perhaps as a gift) on Christmas Eve, 1965. It sold at £25,000 (estimate £1500-2500).

In fact, all the pieces seem to have been bought in mid-winter. The following year on December 28, 1966, the collector had acquired a Qianlong white jade lipped water cup in the form of a lotus leaf, emblematic of long life. Again in good condition (though the lily pad was bruised and had natural flaws), it sold for £14,000.

A pale celadon vase in the form of a lotus flower with carved tie and leaping carp, symbolic of achievement, 51

/4 /2

in

(13cm) high, bought on January 2, 1968, sold at £7000, while a 31

in (9cm) high

pale jade vase carved as a phoenix with sprays of flowers, purchased almost a year later on December 31, 1968, took £12,000.

Chinese works of art continue to command welcome bids across the UK’s regional salerooms. Six telephone lines were booked at

Plymouth Auction Rooms (18% buyer’s

premium) on May 5 to bid for an early 19th century workbox decorated with 28 reverse-painted glass panels within engraved mother-of-pearl borders. Found in a country house in West Cornwall, it measured 10 x 8in (25 x 20cm). The estimate of £200-300 proved notional as a specialist in the room parted with £7200. On April 23 the Sherborne saleroom of

Charterhouse (17.5% buyer’s

premium) offered a famille rose medallion bowl, one of the most recognisable products from the Daoguang period

Gallé vase stands tall in Berks

HIGH-quality French art glass is not the typical fare of auctioneers

Martin & Pole (12.5% buyer’s premium) of

Wokingham, Berkshire, but they achieved a very solid price for this large cameo vase by Emile Gallé on April 21. Standing an

impressive 2ft 4in (72cm) high and carved with irises in shades of dark purple, blue and green overlaying a beige body, it merited its £6500-7250 estimate, selling at £7000.

Above left: a Daoguang yellow ground medallion bowl – £15,000 at Charterhouse. Above right: a Qianlong pale celadon vase – £25,000 at Mallams. Below: an early 19th century workbox with glass panels – £7200 at Plymouth Auction Rooms.

(1821-1850).

This 6in (15cm) yellow-ground example offered had been in the vendor’s family for more than a century and was probably acquired by a great-great-grandfather who worked in the Diplomatic Service in China in the third quarter of the 19th century. Two other bowls from the same source were sold here in November 2009. This time the hammer fell to a specialist London dealer at the top end of its £10,000-15,000 estimate. Demand for rhinoceros horn shows no sign of abating. The latest regional saleroom to benefit from an insatiable demand for carved rhino libation cups is

George Kidner (17.5% buyer’s

premium) of Lymington. The two examples in their April 29 sale, catalogued simply and estimated at just £200-300, were both finely carved and considered 18th century in date. The first to be offered, carved as a lotus leaf with birds and flowers in relief and standing 31 (9cm) high, sold on the telephone at

/2

in

Left: late 19th century Chinese silver is proving of increasing interest to Chinese buyers. This 7in (18cm) tea kettle with ivory handle, embossed and engraved with warriors on horseback, topped

Railtons’ (15% buyer’s premium)

sale in Alnwick on March 6-7 when it sold to one of two Chinese telephone bidders at £3200 (estimate £200-300).

Right: carved rhino horn libation cup, £55,000 at George Kidner.

Tributes to a tragic band of brothers

FEW gallantry medals speak louder of the horrors of the First World War than a remarkable family group offered for sale

by David Lay (19% buyer’s premium)

of Penzance on March 16. The oldest decorations were those

£48,000. The following lot, the marginally larger vessel pictured here, was particularly well observed and to the handle is the unusual feature of a tiger climbing into the bowl. Bidding reached £55,000 before it sold to a Mainland Chinese buyer on the internet.

Also in this Hampshire sale was an 18th century celadon glazed porcelain vase with twin lug handles and an impressed Qianlong reign mark. Estimated at £100- 200, it sold at £8000.

Anna Brady

awarded to Ernest Frederick Sullivan CBE – the Afghanistan Medal with Kabul clasp awarded while 2nd Lieutenant of the 67th Foot and the Queen’s South Africa Medal with Cape Colony and South Africa 1902 clasps while Lt. Col. of the East Surrey Regiment. More poignant are the medals of three of his sons who died during the Great War. Philip Hamilton Sullivan, 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Munster Fusiliers, died 27th Aug. 1914; Eugene Gilbert Sullivan, Capt. E. Surrey Reg. Died 8th May 1917 and Henry Ernest Sullivan, A. Major (Lieut. on Star) Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. Died 31st Oct. 1917.

The lot benefited from the inclusion of a large quantity of ephemera, including cabinet photographs of the four men in dress uniform and civvies, press cuttings, wartime letters to and from family members and a copy of Three Brothers, a privately printed 55-page hardback book written by their mother and published in 1921. Also included was ephemera relating to another brother, George Frederick Sullivan, who survived into old age.

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