Antiques Trade Gazette 17


to the top flaw…


“Even after the latest legal restrictions, rhinoceros horn Chinese works of art can be relied on to feature among the top sellers at any auction if sensibly estimated”


Above: Cartier desk clock – £49,000 at The Canterbury Auction Galleries.


Jones and an 8¼in (21cm) early 20th century William Moorcroft jardinière in the Celadon Pomegranate pattern with a green flash signature. Each lot was estimated at £4000-6000 and each sold on the lower figure. Attractive as she was, the Lady


Motorist could only just about hold a candle in price terms to the charms of Diana – a life-size, white and grey-veined carrara marble statue. Research into the 5ft 5¾in (1.67m)


goddess of the hunt, holding a bow and arrow and with a hound at her side, revealed a chequered history. At some point in the 1950s she had


been used as a headstone in Bromsgrove Cemetery before being sold to the current vendor who, having had it cleaned and minor restoration work carried out, learned from the V&A that she had been carved in Italy in the 1880s after an original by Giovanni Maria Benzoni (1809-73). Estimated at £15,000-20,000, she was


the subject of a bidding battle between two dealers, one of whom took her at £29,000. Even after the latest legal restrictions,


rhinoceros horn Chinese works of art can be relied on to feature among the top sellers at any auction if sensibly estimated, as was Fieldings’ offering of a late 17th/ early 18th century archaistic libation cup in the form of a flared lotus flower. The 4in (10cm) high cup was carved in


detailed relief to the well with a dragon, its body extending to form the handle, with four smaller dragons climbing on it. On a later fixed horn base and with


Above: 18th century and later carved Flemish buffet – £8200 at Fieldings.


some damage, it was estimated at £30,000-40,000. The higher figure would have been easily reachable last year but, with a catalogue warning that a CITES export licence would probably not be forthcoming and the auctioneers refusing to accept any bids from China or anywhere else outside the EU, it sold on the lower £30,000 estimate to a London private buyer. Other, more affordable, attractions


from the Orient included a couple of large Japanese carved ivory figures, both 19th century and suffering some damage. One, a 19¼in (49cm) figure of a monk


standing before a temple featuring a seated Buddha with a dragon at his feet, went at £3800 against a £2000-3000 estimate. The second, a 13¾in (35cm) high group


of two peasants on a rocky outcrop, one with a fishing net, the other with an axe,


Doulton character jug to £5400


a painted chain of office. This turns a £50 jug into a £5400 jug, the sum bid for the example seen at Louis Taylor (17.5% buyer’s premium) of Stoke-on-Trent on June 6-7. The estimate was £3000-5000). As a general rule the market is soft, but


acquiring something other collectors don’t have continues to be an expensive pastime for lovers of Royal Doulton character jugs. The standard issue of the large Bonnie


Prince Charlie jug, designed by Stanley J. Taylor and produced as part of the Royalty


series from 1990-94, makes around £30- 40 at auction. However, the example of D6858 seen here carried the backstamp Design Original Sample and Property of Royal Doulton and was in prototype colours with a green and blue tartan (rather than red) coat. Quite how the market will react


to factory colourways is always unpredictable: this one went just below hopes at £1450.


Roland Arkell


had a red seal mark to the base and also went comfortably above a £1500-1800 estimate at £2600. Perfectly decent furniture – George


III mahogany sideboards, 18th century walnut chests of drawers, 19th century walnut and marquetry credenzas – continues to look cheap. Of 100 furniture lots at Fieldings, only


three went into four figures and one of them was a longcase clock – a 7ft 3in (2.22m) high, 18th century figured walnut case with associated eight-day movement and a dial inscribed James Drury London, which doubled the mid estimate, selling at £2200. The furniture did, however, include


two items which each went at around ten times the mid estimates. One was a 2ft 6in (76cm) wide 18th


century and later constructed walnut feather-banded bureau with the fall supported on a double gate-leg action which made £6000. The other, was the early 18th century and later carved Flemish three-tier buffet illustrated on this page. Measuring 4ft ½in (1.23m) wide it sold to the UK trade at £8200.


* For non-bibliophiles the self-critical author was Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64), who became a successful short story writer and novelist and is today probably best known for The Scarlet Letter. He published Fanshawe in 1828, which he hated so much he attempted to destroy all remaining copies. The resulting rarity puts it in great demand and last October a first edition made $50,000 at Sotheby’s New York.


Cartier quality makes up for condition of £49,000 clock


ITS black onyx body was cracked and some of the rose-cut diamonds and coral which marked the hours were missing, but that did not deter bidders at The Canterbury Auction Galleries (20% buyer’s premium) on May 23 competing to buy the Cartier desk clock illustrated above. A dozen would-be purchasers,


British, Continental and American, battled it out with bidders in the Kent saleroom, sending the price soaring way over estimate to £49,000. “Our valuation (just £2500-


4000) was conservative because of its condition, but there was no mistaking the quality of the clock,” said auctioneer Tony Pratt. “It attracted huge interest with


phone bidders from America and Spain, but it sold to a Bond Street jeweller who was determined to purchase it.” Made by Cartier in Paris in the 1920s


and named the Milestone clock, it had a cream enamelled ‘Pekin’-style chapter ring with black enamel Roman numerals interspersed with small square red coral panels, the border set with two small rose diamonds at each numeral. At its centre, the dial had a red coral


fretted carving of a bird and floral motifs within a mother-of-pearl border, while rose diamond-set hands marked the time. It had been sent for sale by a


family from the Dover area who were undoubtedly pleased and surprised by the international; interest which it sparked. Its success was overshadowed by the


stellar results of the Evans Collection of Chinese porcelain (see last week’s Auction Reports).


Roland Arkell


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