Autumn Fine Sale

14th September 2022

As the summer in Yorkshire drew to an end, the hum of activity at Hartleys Auctions was building with great vigour, as we charged towards our September 14^th Antique & Fine Art Auction.  With a much larger sale than normal, we had on offer ceramics, glass, works of art, clocks, furniture, silver and jewellery, but also within the 890 lots we had our once yearly specialist book section as well as our second helping of arms & militaria in 2022.

The sale started with our ceramics section that led the way with a 92% selling rate and a long list of mention worthy results. Ten of the items reached four-figure sums and as ever this started with a Chinese piece, when a stunning pair of vases painted with famille verte enamels over doubled the top estimate to reach £1,950. A unique pair of Palissy style oblong plates depicting fish in high relief quickly followed suit with £2,400, again doubling the upper estimate.  Eight rare pieces of early 18^th century Elers type redware made a collective £6,080, with the best singular piece from the collection being a bulbous mug with unmarked silver rim which made £1,200.  A nice surprise came from an extremely traditional piece, a Nottingham brown saltglaze stoneware mug c.1790, which with its unique pierced design and at a mere 3 ½” tall, made a fantastic £4,800. The best price within the section was found with a Royal Doulton figure, surprising as nowadays Royal Doulton mostly frequents our weekly sale. This came in with another piece from the same deceased estate, being pulled out of our weekly sale after Ruth our ceramics expert spotted some signs of real rarity. Its partner from the same house, a figure of a jester, made £1,250, but the “spooks” lacking an HN number and in an unseen colour way made a whopping £6,800; even with a crack over the shoulder.

The silver section went like clockwork, being a little bit more predictable than the ceramic section. The three highest prices of the section came from a Victorian Elkington & Co bowl which made over double “melt price” at £1,150, a Victorian Aldwinkle & Slater four-piece tea and coffee service which again made a third more than “melt price” at £1,700 and an extensive silver table service by Ogden & Sons which followed suit by making mid estimate at £3,200.

The gold, watches & jewellery section came and went without a hitch, competitive bidding throughout seeing sovereigns doing higher than expected across the board and an 18ct gold cigarette case get £2,750. The best of the watches was an 18ct gold hunter pocket watch which almost doubled the bottom estimate to make £1,150 and a World War II Lemania military wristwatch which skipped just beyond the top estimate to make £1,700.

The once yearly book section was represented by 110 lots spanning from ancient antiquarian texts, through to modern first editions. We had a large section of wonderful condition Biggles books which peaked with lot 401 “the uncollected stories” which made a neat £1,000, a harrowing piece of World War II German propaganda by Ernst Hiemer made £750, and a special edition Winnie the Pooh from 1973 over doubled the top estimate to make a cracking £1,150. The best price within the section came from a collection of six albums of antique Cornish photographs, the “Gibson House Photographs”, which made a superb £2,900, well above their £600 – 800 estimate. But to quote my book specialist, “collections like these are almost impossible to value and it’ll either make a few hundred pounds or two specific collectors will drive it into four figures”.

Within the auction we had our second episode of arms, militaria & field sports of 2022. This sold as ever with great aplomb, with high interest throughout.  Six of the 80 lots made four figure sums, with £1,100 for a lovely quality Hollis & Sheath boxed percussion shotgun, £1,050 for a deactivated Bren gun, the same for a lovely full-sized Westley Richards .410 shotgun (usually sized much smaller for children or those of a smaller frame) and £1,500 for an amazing quality Caucasian dagger.  The top two prices of the section came out of Japan, with a wakizashi attributed to Sukemitsu of Shimada making £2,000 and a Katana attributed to Kawachi Daijo Fujiwara Masahiro from Hizen pipping its top estimate to make £5,400. But the most interesting lot of the section was a group of medals: the medals themselves were not of any rarity or age, but the story of the gentleman who won them was breath-taking, from being imprisoned in Iraq to being on Easter Island during the first H-Bomb tests. This background helped the typically low value medals reach a whopping £950.

Our painting section was filled with everything from watercolours to oils and from the traditional through to the contemporary.  The best of the watercolours came from a particularly subtle Lakeland piece from the venerable William Heaton Cooper that gained £2,000, and the best of the oils came with £1,150 for a wonderfully accurate Stanley Reed still life, £1,750 for an ethereal John Morgan "The Light of the Hareem Cairo" and £5,200 for an empowering Alfred de Breanski called "Early Morning on Loch Etive". The best price of the section came from a deep red oil by Zygmunt Josef Menkes "Le Bouffon", that made three times the top estimate to reach £13,000.

Rolling into the works of art section we saw six items gain four figure sums, the best being £1,850 for “Folly”, a nude bronze figure, after Edward Onslow Ford, £1,900 for the stunning and highly stylish pair of Louis Vuitton bell boys and £2,600 for a “Godwit” by Guy Taplin - another classic bird on a stick from the artist famed for such works.  The best result of the section of £4,000 came from a large pair of Meiji period Japanese cloisonne enamel  vases, they were never meant for sale, but noticed by our head valuer Gerard when he was called in to value paintings at the vendor’s house.

The clocks and furniture sections always round off our sales, and with the 120 lots we saw another 8 four figure results. These included £1,050 for a Charles Eames lounge chair, £1,050 for a one-armed 18^th century settle, £1,650 for a very cool Poul Cadovius retro rosewood stacking unit and £1,750 for a coin operated Adler polyphon. The best two prices of the section came out of Chinese offerings, with £2,000 for a pair of padouk wood jardiniere stands and £3,600 pierced and carved side table with inset red marble top.  

Each section came and went with great competition and success, with the predicted lower estimate of £210,000 being beaten handsomely with the day resulting in a collective hammer total of £266,000. On we now march towards the last Fine Sale of the year, with the October Toy Sale (now online!) and the last weeks of collection for our Wine & Whisky sale.