Tennants’ country house sale sees strong selling rate and buoyant prices

Decorative and practical antique furniture both saw good results, with top prices achieved for a Harlequin set of eight Charles II joined oak back stools from the late 17th century (sold for £4,300 plus buyer’s premium), a satinwood and polychrome painted Carlton House style desk (sold for £4,500), and a panelled oak bedstead (sold for £4,000). A trend is emerging towards stronger prices for practical pieces of storage furniture, such as a George III mahogany linen press that sold for £1,600.

Clocks, particularly longcase clocks, sold well throughout; highlights included an oak thirty hour longcase clock made circa 1770 by Thomas Lister of Halifax (sold for £1,500), and an early 18th century thirty hour striking wall clock made circa 1710 by John Sanderson of Wigton (sold for £1,500).

A private collection of 19th century moulds for frame making and decorative plaster work sold well, too. The collection comprised nearly 140 wooden moulds, the majority made from boxwood, and were sold in 17 lots including a collection of 19th century framers’ labels and a folio of frame patterns for a total hammer 
price of £10,200.

Amongst the pictures in the sale were a selection of lots from a private collection in Scotland, highlights of which included ‘The Scorned Wife’ by George Arthur Gaskell from 1899 (sold for £3,200), and ‘A Path of Roses’ by George H Boughton (sold for £4,000). Good prices for good Country House pictures included a pair of engravings of prize cows after William Henry Davis (sold for £950), an English School 19th Century naïve study of a boxer in the Earl of Lonsdale’s colours (sold for £1,400), and a set of four hunting scenes from the early 19th century by F.R. Williams after John Nott Sartorius with provenance from Thimbleby Hall, North Yorkshire (sold for £4,200).

Also selling strongly were a set of 26 framed prints from William Nicholson’s Alphabet series (sold for £1,400) and ‘Harvesting near Kirk Ireton, Derbyshire’ by George Turner (sold for £3,000). Yorkshire pictures also sold well, such as ‘Unloading the coal at Robin Hoods Bay’ by Owen Bowen that sold for £3,000 against a £400-600 estimate.

Further highlights included a circa 1900 Ushak carpet (sold for £3,800), a porcelain Baluster vase in the Chinese Qianglong style (sold for £3,200), and a pair of Wedgwood Parian busts of George and Robert Stephenson, circa 1860 (sold for £1,900). Once more, Royal Worcester saw strong demand throughout, with the likes of a set of six Royal Worcester porcelain dinner plates by John Reed selling for £3,500.

The sale saw a total hammer price of £293,430 for the 596 lots and achieved an 88% sold rate. Full sale results are available on our website: www.tennants.co.uk

All prices quoted are hammer price, excluding buyer’s premium of 22% plus VAT.

Tennants Auctioneers is a fourth-generation family business and is one of the UK’s largest international Antiques and Fine Art auctioneers. Situated in Leyburn, North Yorkshire, Tennants holds more than 80 sales and connects more than 200,000 buyers and sellers every year. 

As a family business, Tennants stays true to its Yorkshire heritage and offers its clients unrivalled service, expertise and value. In 2014, the firm expanded the Auction Centre to 80,000sq ft with the development of The Garden Rooms - a dedicated venue for events, weddings, conferences and exhibitions. The venue is one of the region’s largest event spaces with a capacity of over 
600 people.

For more information, visit www.tennants.co.uk.