Sworders

This couture gown, sold for £360 at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium), was once owned by the woman who hosted the wedding of Wallis Simpson and the Duke of Windsor.

The auction calendar has been much changed by Covid 19 restrictions. However, as indicated by these lots offered for sale, an increasing number of auction houses are transacting safely behind closed doors holding timed sales or ‘live online’ sales with bids taken via bidding platforms such as thesaleroom.com or over the phone. Typically purchases can either be collected safely and couriered, or stored by the auction house until the current government guidance is lifted. With auction houses set to be able to be reopen premises to the public from June 1, more and more sales are now being added to the auction calendar.

Among the major changes to Sworders’ auction calendar because of the coronavirus lockdown is the addition of a monthly sale of jewellery, watches and objects of vertu.

The latest Fine Interiors sale at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium) included among the opening lots this large 22in (54cm) high maiolica storage jar.

After a month’s hiatus, a number of top-tier regional auction houses are returning to the rostrum to conduct ‘live online’ sales.

Sworders is launching a new calendar of online-only and timed online auctions to satisfy demand from clients for sales next month.

Painting of Evening Star reflects end of an era as coal-fired locomotives started to hit the buffers.

An eyewitness account of the trial of two elderly widows on charges of witchcraft proved one of the more successful lots in a truly Out of the Ordinary sale held in Essex on February 11.

Our weekly selection from salerooms.

The recent auction of 20th century design at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium) in Stansted Mountfitchet was underpinned by more than 60 consignments from the estate of MJ Long.

Modestly catalogued as English School, 1960s, a Modern British study of a head emerged as one of the top-selling pictures at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium) in Stansted Mountfitchet.

Items from the homes of MJ Long (1939-2018) and Colin ‘Sandy’ St John Wilson (1922-2007), the husband and wife team that designed the British Library, come for sale at Sworders in Stansted Mountfitchet later this month.

The English artist and poster designer Alfred Thomson (1894-1979) painted this eye-catching depiction of the famous penguin pool at London Zoo.

Provincial by geography but far from provincial in outlook, auction houses from Essex to the Yorkshire Dales underlined the international nature of their trade at recent auctions. Cosmopolitanism covered both what was on offer and who was buying.