12 19th March 2011 london selection
richmond needlework collection continued from page 11
pair of central shutters and a specific iconography intended to celebrate the foundation of the province of Carolina in 1663. At £30,000-40,000, it carried the highest estimate of the collection. It got away at £28,000 to a phone bidder. This was the most expensive of the
mirror frames. None of them outstripped expectations, although not all were in tip-top condition. The next highest price was £20,000,
paid for a 2ft 4in x 22½in (70 x 56cm) example worked with raised figures of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza surmounted by a roundel of Victory. Its £18,000-25,000 estimate was substantially lower than the £50,000- 100,000 put on it when it was last offered for sale at Christie’s in 2001. The cheapest was a frame measuring
2ft 1in x 21½in (65 x 54cm), worked with roundels of a stag, a unicorn, a lion, a leopard and four full-length raised figures. This made a below-estimate £7000 and was one of the dozen or so lots secured by the main phone bidder. Their other purchases included four
pairs of late 16th/early 17th century Franco-Scottish needlework panels, worked in tent stitch with coloured wools and silk, that had been offered back in 2001. Two of them measured 12 x 10½in (30 x 26cm), the other two 23 x 22½in (58.5 x 57cm). Paddle 3050 carried them off at prices ranging from £1300 to £2400. Although 17th century embroidered
pictures made up the lion’s share of the consignment, there were also three 17th century long samplers and a small group of costume. Two of the samplers, each 3ft (91cm) in length, were re-offerings from the Christie’s sale with their 2001 estimates of £8000-12,000 and £10,000- 15,000 reduced to £2000-4000 each. They each went for £1800. The third, shorter and wider version, was guided at £3000-5000 but failed to get away. The costume included the mid-18th
century embroidered linen stomacher shown here, the better preserved of two in the sale, which sold for £1000, and a dated English beadwork drawstring bag, also shown, that made a double estimate
£2800 to a commission bidder. A child’s mid-17th century
cap worked with typical panels of flowers and scrolls went for £850, while a pair of yellow silk lady’s shoes from c.1740 embroidered in coloured silk chain stitch with flowers, was the object of a three- way contest in the room between a commission bid, Witney Antiques and a bidder at the back of the room, taking them to £4800, comfortably over the £1000-2000 estimate.
English furniture The 70 per cent take-up for the 135
lots of English furniture and objects that followed the Richmond embroideries might not have been as high as for the textiles, but it was still pretty respectable and a reflection perhaps of the relative dearth of such material on offer in the London rooms since the New Year. There was certainly a good sprinkling
of familiar trade faces at the New Bond Street rooms for this part of the sale, keen, no doubt, to monitor prices as well as contest anything that took their eye. That reliable old feature, the country-
house provenance, certainly came into play with the sale’s best-seller, a muscular 7ft (2.1m) wide George II period white- painted and marble-topped carved console table. This was consigned direct from Brightling Park, the East Sussex country house for whose drawing room it was probably commissioned by John Fuller (1706-1755) in the mid 18th century.
Two lots consigned to Bonhams‘ sale from Brightling Park in Sussex. Left: the mid-18th century marble-topped white- painted table led the day on £180,000, while, above, the white-painted, acanthus-carved pedestals of the same period went for £17,000.
room and phone ended with them selling to the room for £17,000. The other big price in this sale
A George III mahogany foldover-top tea table sold for £150,000 at Bonhams.
came with a finely carved 3ft 1in (94cm) wide George III period carved mahogany tea table of serpentine outline and concertina action, stamped H. Tibats to its hinges, which had been consigned from Bonhams‘
Leeds office. Purchased by the vendor’s father
in October 1948 from the Yorkshire dealer Freddie Laycock of Burnsall, near Skipton for what was then a
John Fuller inherited the house, (called
Rosehill at the time), from his father (also called John) in 1745 and during his short, ten-year tenure set about improving and remodelling it. The house remained in the Fuller
family until 1879 when it was purchased by Percy Tew. It was renamed Brightling Park at this point and has remained in the family ever since. The name Fuller Esq is inscribed along
the top of the table rail, tying it in further to the long-term history of the house. Research in the Fuller papers has revealed several payments to Hallett in the mid 18th century, raising the tempting possibility that this piece could be by the celebrated London cabinetmaker William Hallett (although he is known for much more restrained mahogany pieces). Whatever the authorship, this
A George III sofa frame that was contested to £17,000 at Bonhams.
imposing fresh-to-market piece attracted plenty of interest, with commission and three phone bidders competing to secure it and taking bidding well past the £40,000-60,000 guide. The hammer finally fell at £180,000 to one of the phones. The subsequent lot, also consigned
from Brightling Park, was a pair of 17¼in (44cm) high and 2ft (62cm) wide white-painted pedestals of similar date to the table, designed to stand in alcoves in the drawing room, and carved with deep bands of acanthus to their low, serpentine-shaped bodies between narrow borders of ribbon and paterae and egg and dart moulding. For these a guide of £3000-4000 was left in the shade after a contest between
substantial £682.10s, this piece may also have been with the Mayfair dealer Leonard Knight prior to 1929. An almost identical table formerly in
the collection of Thomas Inman and then with London dealers Norman Adams was offered for sale in 2003 by Christie’s in a sale titled 50 Years of Collecting: The Arts of Georgian England where it made £210,000. That auction proved to be something
of a high water mark for top Georgian furniture. As one London dealer observed: “Those were different times.” So Bonhams weren’t so bullish, estimating their table at £80,000- 120,000. Bidding opened at £60,000 and
started a little sluggishly, but then the tempo picked up and several telephones took up the battle, as did one determined bidder in the room who held out to beat off all the absentee competition with a winning bid of £150,000. A few lots earlier there had been
something of a battle at a less elevated level for the frame of an early George III sofa with cabriole legs and arms carved with acanthus foliage. Bonhams had put a £4000-6000
guide on this mahogany skeleton which they thought might be of Irish origin. It was a piece with potential. A drawn-out phone contest produced a final price of £17,000. Notable amongst the later pieces was
an imposing 6ft 11in (2.1m) wide Regency oak partner’s pedestal desk attributed on stylistic grounds to George Bullock and thought to have been made for Wortley Hall, Yorkshire. It just outpaced a £20,000-30,000 estimate to sell for £35,000.
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