Antiques Trade Gazette 19


of oak…


“One former Beedhams client flew across from Jersey just for the sale … he paid top rates for four pieces and got one bargain”


Elizabethan to Charles II chairs at Bonhams Chester. Right: c.1570-80 panel back armchair – £17,000. Below, left to right:


c.1660-80 Scottish pine caqueteuse style armchair – £6500. c.1660-80 large ash panel back armchair – £10,000. c.1670-80 oak and marquetry child’s high chair – £11,000. c.1670 Yorkshire back stool – £950.


Above: 17th century portrait of William of Orange in carved giltwood frame – £7000 at Bonhams Chester.


Oak buyers encouraged to accessorise


AS usual, the oak sale at Bonhams Chester on April 19 included pieces which would enhance rooms furnished with early oak. It opened with 61 lots of 17th and


18th century pewter tankards, plates etc which went to collectors generally in three figures. Best sellers at £1400 apiece were a c.1700, 3¾in (10cm) spice pot; a c.1800, 8in (20cm) tall Scottish baluster quart measure and a c.1730, 12in (31cm) diameter, wrigglework plate with touchmarks for Alexander Cleave II. Framed stumpwork and needlework


pictures are also long-standing favourites at Chester and here these were led by a


Although time had been available


to prepare the catalogue, the calendar meant that the Chester team had just three days to prepare the saleroom. “We pulled out all the stops and put in much more than three days’ work into it,” said Mr Houlston. The sale’s top seller was a c.1600-10


cupboard on stand. Standing 4ft 9in high by 3ft 9in wide


(1.47 x 1.15m), the cupboard, featuring guilloche carving from frieze to base, was a well-documented piece. Estimated at £8000-12,000, it sold at £25,000. Given the same estimate and also


illustrated here, was an earlier, smaller cupboard dated c.1570-90, measuring 3ft 8½in high by 23in wide (1.14m x 59cm). Originally it would have had an integral canopy superstructure long since removed, but this didn’t stop it from selling at £21,000. Looking Elizabethan, but in fact from


c.1650-60, was an oak and inlaid court cupboard, catalogued as from the Leeds area, where during the Commonwealth there was a strong fashion for furniture designs of a century earlier. The ebonised boss-embellished frieze


was raised on ring-turned end columns, enclosing a central cupboard door centred by a shield and flanked by canted panelled sides. Below was a pair of panelled doors


with chequer-inlaid rails and central lozenge moulding. Measuring 4ft 6½in


tall by 4ft 4in wide (1.40 x 1.33m), it sold on its lower estimate at £6000. It’s hard to think of a sale of early


oak without a four-poster bed of some description. Usually on the small side to accommodate 21st century bodies, they nevertheless find a market. Among the Beedham Collection there


was one example – a fairly generously proportioned c.1560-80 French canopy bed. Measuring 4ft 8in wide, 6ft 9in deep


and 8ft high (1.44 x 2.08 x 2.49m), it had fluted and acanthus-carved headposts featuring carved gladiators and cherubs and similarly carved endposts which also featured angels. As is almost always the case with early


beds, it had undergone some restoration but took a mid-estimate £4200.


Bonhams, Chester, April 19 Number of lots offered: 517 Lots sold: 72% Buyer’s Premium: 25/20% Sale total: £275,000


Bonhams, Chester, May 24 Number of lots offered: 274 Lots sold: 87% Buyer’s Premium: 25/20% Sale total: £274,000


A couple of beds did well in the April


sale. One, catalogued as an Elizabethan Revival oak tester bed (the late 19th/ early 20th revival rather than the aforementioned Commonwealth fashion in Yorkshire) featured three carved saints in niches on the headboard. Measuring 5ft 2in wide by 7ft 3½in deep (1.58 x 2.23m), it was estimated at just £800- 1200 but sold at £4500. Earlier and smaller was a 17th century


12-panel tester bed, possibly made in Salisbury, with the date 1615 carved to the base of the central term and the initials WW to the centre of a carved S scroll on the footboard. With flower-filled arched carved panels


spaced by caryatids to the headboard, and chain-carved rails, it measured 4ft 9in wide by 6ft 10in deep (1.46 x 2.09m) and sold on its lower £7000 estimate. The April sale also had a couple of


practical tables. A rare, 5ft 4in (1.64m) wide Charles II


oak double-action gateleg table with an oval drop-leaf top above frieze drawers had been sold by Mary Bellis in 1981 for £3400. An estimate of £5000-8000 three decades later showed a significant loss in real terms and when it sold at £7000 one hoped that the vendors reflected upon their 30 years of pleasure in having it. Going a little above top estimate a 6ft


continued on page 20


Above: mid-17th century stumpwork picture – £4000 at Bonhams Chester.


mid-17th century stumpwork picture of a lady surrounded by a lion, a leopard, insects and flowers. The 12½ x 17in (32 x 43cm) picture with an monogram worked in seed pearls went above estimate at £4000. Seventeenth


Above: c.1700 pewter spice pot – £1400 at Bonhams Chester.


and 18th century oil portraits are a more recent addition to these oak sales, where they generally do rather better than they would at fine art sales. The prize in April was the portrait


of William of Orange after Peter Lely above. Probably 17th century with later restoration, the 4ft 1in x 3ft 4in (1.22 x 1.01m) picture was in a good antique carved giltwood frame and against a £2000-3000 estimate sold at £7000.


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