Somerset auction offers diverse selection – Antique Collecting

A diverse auction featuring fine silver, furniture, pictures, decorative arts and ceramics will all be offered in a Somerset auctioneer’s upcoming three-day Autumn Fine Art Auction in September.

Lawrences Fine Art Auctioneers located in Crewkerne, will see over 1,300 lots go under the hammer on September 24-26.

Highlights include two lots of furniture to show the cabinet makers’ skills but are two centuries apart in date.

A George III Mahogany Library Breakfront bookcase dated c1780. This bookcase was shown in a watercolour sketch of the drawing room at Bells House, Wimborne c.1942 is still very useable to this day just as it was back then with its astragal glazed doors. It has an auction estimate of £15,000-18,000.

A Cotswold School Arts and Crafts Oak Wardrobe by Ernest Gimson is on the open market for the first time since it was made in 1901. It has excellent provenance with a direct line of descent through the family of one of the most important Cotswold School Patrons and was still used on a daily basis before being entered into the auction. This piece of furniture stands out due to its useability and is everything buyers would expect to see in the best Cotswold school furniture. The piece has an auction estimate of £8,000-15,000.

Collectors of more intricate things will also find a good selection of glass. One standout lot is a rare Whitefriars Banjo Vase. The vase, in meadow green in colour, has not been on the open market for over 50 years has an auction estimate of £1,500–2,000.

Elsewhere, an early 19th-century Swiss musical box by Francois Nicole is a rare and early three-air mandolin musical box with rigid notation marking and fine teeth (approx. 219). It also has the retailer’s plaque inside for ‘Ruegger, Place De Bel-Air, A Geneve’. What makes this music box special is that it is believed that all early musical boxes with rigid notation lines on the cylinder were made by Francois Nicole, there are three known Nicole boxes and this one possibly the fourth. It also has interesting provenance, as it was passed through the family from a relation connected to the Luttrell family of Dunster Castle, who travelled widely through Europe in the 19th century where it was possibly acquired. It has an estimate of £8,000-12,000.

In the jewellery selection of the sale a diamond and fancy yellow diamond ring has an estimate of £60,000–65,000, a gentleman’s stainless steel mechanical Rolex Daytona Oyster wristwatch is estimated at £30,000-40,000.

In the silver sale are two finely made silver statuettes of military figures, made by The Goldsmiths & Silversmiths Co Ltd in 1946, consigned by a descendant of the Marshal of the Royal Air Force The Viscount Trenchard GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO (1873 – 1956) to whom they had been presented in 1946 after fifty three years of distinguished service.

Finally, artworks presented in the sale include a beautiful Greek scene depicting Corfu from the village of Ascension (now called Analipsi) by the distinguished Victorian artist and traveller Edward Lear (1812-1888), painted in 1856-1857. The canvas, passed by descent in the family of Alfred Seymour MP, of Knoyle House in Wiltshire and later of Trent in Dorset, has an estimate of £25,000-35,000.