UK CERAMIC SALE BREAKS AUCTION RECORDS
A single owner collection of early Derby ceramics has broken auction records by totalling a cool £1/4million at the Lichfield Auction Centre.
The 250 Lot auction held by Richard Winterton Auctioneers of Lichfield last Thursday, (20th August) resulted in a 100% selling rate combined with prices never seen before for such items in the area. Such an encouraging result indicates the strength in the top-end fine art market in which despite the recession, buyers will still invest in rare and fresh to the market stock. It also illustrates the power that auctions are capable of.
The collection itself manifested a few months ago in a phone call to Adrian Rathbone, Associate at the Auction House. Mr Rathbone comments:
‘I received a phone call asking me if I would like to try and sell some ceramics. Naturally I said yes and we collected about 20 boxes of bubble wrapped ceramics from the Staffordshire client. We had no idea what was in the boxes until we started carefully unwrapping the contents. It was a bit like Christmas as every piece emerging turned out to be a rare and early example of Derby and Chelsea porcelain dating from the eighteenth century. There were numerous figures, tea pots, coffee pots, tea cups and plates. It was a Valuers’ dream come true’.
The mammoth task of cataloguing and photographing every item for the auction took many weeks of painstaking research. Many of the figures have names so it was a case of correctly identifying the individual pieces and matching the pairs where applicable. The Derby Museum kindly came in to give some guidance in the matter.
The run-up to the sale resulted in a huge response from specialist dealers and collectors who travelled from all of the country for the private and public viewing days. Many took a whole day to assess the condition of each piece, astonished by the sheer quantity and quality of the collection.
The packed saleroom on the auction day was buzzing with excitement and a bank of telephone bidders were also at the ready. Richard Winterton took the auction selling every lot within two hours commenting that it was one of the most exciting auctions he has every undertaken.
Notable individual highlights include Lot 9, a pair of c.1750’s Derby boars attributed to Andrew Planche at £4,400 and Lot 18, a rare eighteenth century butter boat also bid to £4,400. Lot 28, a seated figure of a hare took £4,000 and Lot 93, a Chelsea mug painted with an owl at £6,000. There were a few examples of Meissen in the sale and Lot 161, an eighteenth century masquerade figure after kandler brought £3,200.
For further information on the sale or valuation services, please contact Richard Winterton Auctioneers on 01543 251081
www.richardwinterton.co.uk
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