14 28th July 2012 auction reports Above: cinnabar lacquer and famille rose porcelain supper box, £34,000 at Lyon & Turnbull.
FROM SHANGHAI TO PEEBLES The £180,000 collection formed by the late M.G. Gordon of Peebles provided the backbone to Lyon & Turnbull’s (25% buyer’s premium) inaugural sale of Asian works of art in Edinburgh on June 26. Maurice George Gordon was one of four brothers who were brought up near Huntly, Aberdeenshire, but in
the 1930s he had moved to New York to work with the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China. Posted to Shanghai in 1939 only to be interned by the Japanese in November 1942, by 1945 he had resumed his work, eventually retiring in 1959 when he returned to Scotland. His son, Maurice George Wilson Gordon, who died last year, was the consignor of a group of objects that
reflected purchases made by his parents and often items given as gifts by local dignitaries. It is the sort of provenance that gives confidence to Far Eastern bidders so wary of modern fakes. Estimated at £3000-5000 but sold at £34,000 was an impressive Qianlong period (1736-95) ink and
watercolour hand scroll painted with deer hunting in a mountain village. It had the seal Guxi Tianzi, “the longevity of 70 years”, originally commissioned to commemorate the Qianlong Emperor’s 70th birthday and the 47th year of his reign in 1782. Also from the Gordon estate was a 16in (40cm) wide cinnabar lacquer supper box of fan shape carved in relief
with figures in a mountainous landscape with trellis panel sides raised on openwork scroll feet. It housed six famille rose porcelain compartments. While probably made in the later Qing period c.1900, it skipped its £300- 400 estimate to bring £34,000. Although relatively late to the scene (at least in terms of a specialist sale), L&T hope to run two Asian sales a year underlining over two centuries of trade links between Scotland and China.
HATS OFF TO DRAKE Flick through the pages of an issue of ATG in the 1980s and there are many references to the rising market for Royal Doulton character jugs. In 1985, for example, several examples of The Hatless Drake appeared for sale, topping out at £3200 for that sold by Abridge Auctions, Essex.
They are no longer with us and neither are such stratospheric
sums. The Hatless Drake, which has the words Drake he was a Devon man printed in relief across its subject’s shoulders, was made in only limited numbers in the early years of the Second World War and remains among the rarest of the production run of Doulton ‘tobys’, but it is an indication of where the market is now that another was sold by Lincolnshire auctioneers Golding Young & Mawer (17.5% buyer’s premium) on June 20 for £1400. Nevertheless, it is a great deal more than the later Drake design (one in which he wears a hat) might bring today: probably no more than £30 at auction.
ROCKINGHAM RACES As the most complete surviving Cistercian monastery in southern England, Netley Abbey in Hampshire was an inspiration to Romantic writers and poets, and a suitable scene for the decoration of this 12in (30cm) ewer marked for the Rockingham factory. To the reverse (shown here) was a
bouquet of garden flowers, while the puce griffin mark to the base reading Manufacturer to the King, places it in the 1830-42 period. As a general rule, these are not the
most fashionable wares – and this vase was repaired to the base and some of the flower petals were broken – but there is a small collecting market for the finest wares. Offered for sale on June 2 by Batemans (15% buyer’s premium) of Stamford, it sold at £560.
TAUNTON TOLLS As the inscription says, this 19th century bronze bell was cast at Cox’s in Taunton, a foundry located in the Duke Street/Canon Street area of the town. According to the vendor,
who had purchased it at a dispersal sale in the early 1980s, it formerly hung at Chapel Cleeve House, near Minehead (a property featured on a recent Country House Rescue television programme. It realised £520 at Greenslade Taylor Hunt’s (15% buyer’s premium) sale held at the Priory Saleroom on June 28.
Above: early 18th century mulberry secretaire cabinet, £11,000 at Capes Dunn where the mahogany angle barometer by Finney of Liverpool, below, sold at £9500.
GEORGIAN CONFIDENCE Such is the nature of the market that many auctioneers will err very much on the side of caution when valuing even good Georgian furniture for auction. The Manchester private vendor of this early 18th
century secretaire cabinet had received unduly modest valuations from a number of other auction houses before deciding to sell on June 20 with local firm Capes Dunn (16% buyer’s premium), who had given the boldest figure of £6000-8000. A typical George I form, it was veneered in mulberry,
crossbanded in kingwood and line inlaid with pewter – the distinctive decorative treatment often associated with the London firm of Coxed & Wooster, who operated from ‘the White Swan, against the south gate in St Paul’s Churchyard’. Something over £20,000 might once have been expected for a piece such as this, but the better example sold by Sworders as part of the collection of Norfolk dealer James Brett made £14,000 in 2010. The hammer price at the Charles Street saleroom in Manchester was £11,000. A family heirloom, and another example of
traditional English collecting taste, was a mahogany angle barometer signed by Finney of Liverpool. Joseph Finney (1708-72), made a freeman of the city
in 1733, was both an architect and Liverpool’s finest clockmaker, the business continuing into the 19th century with his son Joseph (fl.1770-1825).
Although signed instruments
are rare (many more clocks and watches by Finney are known) angle barometers were apparently a specialism of both father and son. This 3ft 2in (97cm) high instrument
dating from c.1770 has a silvered scale marked 10-60 with a ring pointer operated by a knot at the end of the tube and is housed in a case, with a dentil-moulded cornice and fluted pilasters to the trunk. A similar model by the maker is on display in the Science Museum, London as part of the collection assembled by George III. Estimated at £10,000-15,000, it did not quite make it that far but did sell on the reserve of £9500.
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