Furniture

This very fine early Regency period drum table c.1805 in a faded honey-coloured rosewood prompted an extraordinary bidding battle at Clevedon Salerooms near Bristol on June 1. Estimated at £4000-6000, it sold at a house record £200,000 (plus 15% buyer’s premium) to a member of the London trade. The underbidder was also a London dealer.

The ownership of this c.1760 Irish mahogany side table was traced by the late Sir Charles Brett, a prominent Ulster attorney and leading Irish historian, to his descendent Charles Brett of Belfast (1752-1829). He was a wine merchant in Belfast and Bordeaux in the 1780s and his many business concerns included interests in the Belfast Glass Works, Distillery, Chamber of Commerce and Shipping.

“This bureau was bought by my Great Grandfather, John Stuart, at the sale of Deacon Brodie’s stock in trade after his execution, W.M. Stuart, the Hummel, Gullane, 18.10.28.”

It gives some idea as to how furniture connoisseurship has changed that the upholstered high-back chair pictured here could once have been accepted as an original furnishing from the bedroom of Mary Queen of Scots.

This exceptional Regency centre table shot to £96,000 (plus premium) at Bearnes of Exeter on March 1.

The tripod table is among the selection of Early Mahogany furniture that contributes to the ACC Antique Furniture Price Index. The sector recorded a 6% fall in 2005 – with tripod tables of routine quality dropping in price – but better examples of any form will buck the general trend.

18th century French furniture was much in evidence on both sides of the Channel at the end of last year. It was the mainstay of two single-owner collections offered at the height of the pre-Christmas season.

Lincolnshire auctioneers Golding Young established a new house record on August 10 when they sold this superb mahogany breakfront side cabinet right for £135,000 (plus 15 per cent buyer’s premium).

Seven telephone lines and several bidders in the room competed for this venerable folding gaming board at the Diss Auction Rooms of Thos. Wm. Gaze & Son on May 21.

AFTER the mixed response to the Christopher Dresser material offered at Lyon & Turnbull (Buyers Premium 17.5%), it was left to the catalogue of decorative arts, consigned by various vendors, to provide the auctioneers with their biggest number of the day.

London antique dealers Mallett’s of New Bond Street have been awarded €111,533 (£80,000) by the Irish High Court after suing an Irish dealer over a stolen bureau bookcase.

Classic English furniture continues to bring good prices at auction providing the quality is there – and this Regency sofa table, right, certainly filled that requirement when it was offered at the March 3 sale in Cornwall held by Bonhams Par (17.5% buyer’s premium).

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. You may be sitting on the very chair that could solve a mystery.

LONDON antique dealers Malletts are waiting to hear whether a Dublin dealer will have to pay them more than £100,000 in compensation over a stolen 18th century bureau bookcase.

“IT was the power of the press that did it,“ said a red-faced, but delighted, auctioneer Michael Perry of Capes Dunn & Co. (15% buyer’s premium). News has only recently filtered down to the ATG of a spectacular result posted by the Manchester auctioneers back on February 22.

SOME changes at the long-standing firm of English period furniture specialists H.C. Baxter, for decades a familiar fixture on their stand at the Grosvenor House Fair.

ON what was a mixed day for furniture sales at Lyon & Turnbull when one or two very elegant pieces failed to get away, there was a deal of interest at the Edinburgh salerooms in this rather unprepossessing George III mahogany writing cabinet on stand, right.

A named designer and good provenance sent this oak refectory table and benches, right, to the highest price at Woolley & Wallis’ sale on March 2.

Duke’s, Dorchester, January 27Buyer’s premium: 15 per centOAK furniture’s rustic aesthetic and its ability to complement modern interiors, has kept it in demand by private buyers and decorators as well as oak dealers, and prices have tended to hold up during the furniture doldrums.