 AN AUCTION OF ANTIQUES, COLLECTABLES & GENERAL EFFECTS
On: Thursday 26th March 2009
View: Wednesday 25th , 1-7pm; sale day from 9.30am
Our March sale has started well.
Jones & Knight’s was a department store in West Ealing from 1910 to 1962. There were two branches. The remaining family have just left their home in Hanwell, W7, which they moved into as a new house in 1905, furnishing it freshly at the time. I can’t tell you how rare it is these days to find a home so well kept and so original as to include ornate working brass gas wall lights!! And a supply of spare gas mantles – that’s the fine gauze mesh shade that dissipates the flame, if you wondered. The kitchen was completely original, with a display of blue and white pottery on the pine dresser, and rather than remove the old coal range, the family had polished and oiled it before sealing it up behind a false wall. Whilst the furniture from 1905 might not inspire, the smalls will. They include old display boxes with titles printed on the front, new hair nets in their printed envelopes, wrought iron curtain rails styled as serpents. In the good old days when the AA man on the motorcycle saluted members, the AA membership cards were like visiting cards. Typically, Mrs Knight, member 976796.D.5, kept all hers from 1935 to 1957. Wasn’t she wonderful?
At the other end of the scale, we have just started to clear a huge penthouse in Finchley. The deceased owners were in their eighties, and this immaculate home was refurnished in the 1980s. The living room suite cost £14,000 and looks unused. That should be in for the April sale along with the rest of the furniture. However, initially we are just collecting the decorative items and the silver, which includes not one but two solid silver flatware sets each for 12! And there’s plenty of other silver too.
A home in Kensington has revealed good quality modern furniture including a fabulous reproduction desk and a painted pine table and chairs and an old reproduction George I mirror. We have the finest quality Art Deco dining suite with extending table on hoop supports and a similarly designed extensive bedroom suite in a light-coloured walnut, again of exquisite quality. From Surrey a clearance has supplied one of the nicest samplers I have seen for years. Measuring 17 x 12 inches it was worked by Rachel Thomas aged 12. It is stitched with characters walking dogs, humorous flying putti and traditional decorations. Unfaded, it is dated 1767. (That’s the year the term Fine Art was first used, Mozart completed his first opera and the Townshend Acts were introduced, but you knew that!).
From another home we have accepted a late Victorian 18ct gold hunter pocket stopwatch by Thomas Mowbray & Sons, London, no. 3286. The case is worked with flowers. There are other watches. 1930s and 1950s clothing, handbags, gloves, fans and good furs are still to be unpacked along with linens and unused early floral patterned net curtaining, old fabrics and early dress decorations. We have the most amazing pair of rubber swimming hats by Kleinerts Viking Sava-Wave styled as the English Rose – a real hoot! On Friday we took delivery of costumes and antique and beadwork clothing from a theatre clearance and two matching early 20th-century fabric-covered, leather-bound luggage items, by Aux Etats Unis, Paris, one a trunk the other a suitcase.
The shelf section is chock-a-block and includes good coloured and clear glass, much by Whitefriars, new and boxed, Lladro figures, an extensive Worcester ‘Evesham’ dinner service, ‘Old Country Roses’, Tuscan ‘Windsor’ and Royal Albert ‘Lady Carlyle’ teaware, a Beswick cottage tea set, Troika, Clarice Cliff, two Wedgwood jasper plaques, a set of Baccarat wall lights, Lilliput Lane models, Tony Wood character mugs, a Thomas Webb limited edition (21/50) 13†Mayfair vase from the Golden Age Collection, a Wedgwood tobacco jar by Hannah Barlow, an Italian glass group of 3 llamas, a Whitefriars blue glass Toby jug, etc.
Collectables include an optical instrument called a Lister Perimeter 315/406 made by Theodore Hamblyn Ltd, London, swords and sword sticks, a Stanley No 55 Universal Plane with attachments, boxed, kitchenalia including The Servant’s Friend by Spong & Co., London, scales, funnels, storage jars, jelly moulds, an army great coat and Morse code equipment, a Victorian slide projector, 3D slides, a Victorian clockwork cylinder musical box, a tiger skin with mounted head and other skins, and a Mills early one-arm bandit.
Jewellery and art objects include a bronze of a lady by G. Höhland ’98, a spectacular large pair of scissors worked with the Russian eagle, by G. Morton, 39 Cheapside, and a quantity of chunky old jet jewellery.
There are lots of pictures, a great collection of records, books including a miniature collection of Shakespeare in a bookcase, old toys, coins, medals and stamps.
There are roughly 130 lots of furniture including a delightful Georgian secretaire bookcase, a light inlaid birch twin pillar dining table with 6 chairs, an Ercol light oak sideboard in as-new condition, a Victorian chaise longue, a continental bow-fronted display cabinet, a good quality inlaid triple wardrobe, a 19th century Scottish mahogany long-case clock with architectural case and circular face, and a huge mahogany Scottish chest of drawers. We have an inlaid walnut chest of drawers, circa 1700, and a barometer by Waterson & Co., Edinburgh. There are lots of clocks for the mantelpiece including ornate marble clock sets, carriage and bracket clocks. Oriental rugs include a large Chinese carpet. General effects include garden furniture and pots, white goods, a modern metal bunk bed/work station, a huge leather corner settee, a nearly new flat screen TV with stand and DVD recorder, etc.
THE CATALOGUE WILL BE ON THE WEBSITE FROM SATURDAY 21ST MARCH: www.bainbridgesauctions.com.
NB There is a café available all sale day including home made food
BREAKING NEWS….. I have just returned from a flat in Westminster – for the April sale there will be more great vintage fashion, scents, handbags, etc.!
