English Antique Furniture Prices Lose Their Gloss

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday March 25, 2006

PETER FISH ARTSMART

ENGLISH antique mahogany furniture has been losing its lustre in its homeland. That's possibly because just about every home in the comfort zone of southern England already sports a set of Victorian balloon-backs and a dropside table, if the magazine Country Life is any guide.

An index of antique furniture prices maintained by Britain's Antique Collectors' Club shows prices overall declined 7 per cent last year after falling 6 per cent in 2004 and 3 per cent in 2003, though there were faint signs of an upturn at the end of last year and more since then.

The index is based on a blend of auction and retail prices for 1000 typical pieces shown in the book British Antique Furniture, by John Andrews.

The latest figures show that antique furniture on average costs only a fraction more than it did in 2000 but is still almost 30 per cent dearer than 10 years ago, in 1995.

It certainly has fallen behind the growth of house prices in the prosperous south of England.

That might suggest it's a bargain, given antique furniture is essentially a finite commodity - and prices could rise sharply if demand picks up. That's happened before, with prices rising 14 per cent in 1996 and 13 per cent in 2000.

But there's a big gap between prices for really outstanding pieces, which continue to climb sharply, and run of the mill. And tastes change, which has meant while Victorian furniture has suffered the worst falls recently, country furniture and oak - which sit well in less formal interiors - have held their value better.

Other slight signs of an upturn showed up in a survey by the British Antique Dealers Association, which saw a small increase in members reporting increased turnover during 2005 compared with the previous year, while fewer members reported a fall-off in sales. The figures are verified with the Companies Office.

BADA said there were clear signs US buyers were returning after almost deserting the UK market after the 2001 terrorist bombings, with 37 per cent of all sales by value heading across the Atlantic.

A quarter of members' business was done at fairs but shops and galleries were the most important outlets, accounting for 59 per cent of total sales. Only around 4 per cent of sales were on the internet, up from 3 per cent in 2004.

Top drawer

While we're talking antique furniture, Sydney will be awash with the stuff - both run-of-the-mill and more rarefied pieces - in the next few days.

The pantechnicons will soon be on the move in preparation for the biannual Antiques and Fine Arts Fair at Moore Park - which attracts dealers from as far away as Tasmania, Western Australia and South Australia as well as Victoria and NSW. It starts with a gala knees-up on Wednesday night.

There's also a stack of furniture at Lawson-Menzies' marathon sale tomorrow at its rooms in The Rocks.

But few of the offerings are likely to surpass the upper end of Bonhams & Goodman's antique furniture and decorative art sale at Moore Park's Byron Kennedy Hall on Tuesday night.

The top pieces on offer hail from the Exeter, southern highlands, home of British-born insurance figure Sir Arthur Weller.

Sir Arthur is a major benefactor of London's Greenwich Maritime Museum and the replica of Captain Cook's "Endeavour". He is also a fan of upmarket Georgian furniture and has patronised galleries such as Asprey's and WR Harvey in London's west end.

It seems the deal may have come Bonhams & Goodman's way via Dalia Stanley, whose boutique auction business was absorbed by Bonhams & Goodman last year.

Among Sir Arthur's treasures - for which apparently there is no room in his new Sydney home - is a fine walnut bachelor's chest circa 1710. Some 72cm wide, it features an inlaid fold-over top and graduated drawers with moulded fronts with brass fittings, set on a plinth base with bracket feet. Inside the top drawer is a printed paper label for the London firm Harvey with a inked-in price of #27,500. It's estimated at $40,000 to $50,000.

Such elegant, compact chests of drawers are highly sought after in Britain, where prices for a piece that ticks all the boxes can range upwards from $100,000. A UK dealer will be asking more than $120,000 for a similar chest from around 1725 at this month's Antique Dealers' Association fair in London.

Certainly the UK trade, along with Woollahra furniture doyen Martyn Cook - who has been known to buy for London dealers - will be checking out the one that's surfaced in Sydney. Another highlight is a Regency mahogany and rosewood "harlequin" sofa table, its interior concealing a cabinet with small drawers and a writing slope that pops up via an ingenious combination lock.

Harlequin furniture is useful for more than one function and was typical of late 18th makers like Thomas Sheraton.

Other items from the Weller cellar include a library globe on a satinwood stand by Newton & Son, circa 1848; a George III mahogany and satinwood serpentine sideboard; and a very fine musical bracket clock by the London maker Eardley Norton, circa 1785.

On the defensive

Tribal Asmat shields from Papua New Guinea will feature among the many mainstream items such as furniture, ceramics, glass and paintings that abound at the Antiques and Fine Arts Fair, from Wednesday at Moore Park.

And why not? Australia's proximity to - and long relationship with - Papua New Guinea has meant there are plenty of tribal art fans in this country, and collections here yield some surprising treasures.

The shields will be displayed by Francis Dunn of John D. Dunn, a Melbourne dealer who usually brings along spectacular English and continental antiques.

And there are more Asmat shields and other PNG arts at Guy Earl-Smith's tribal, Aboriginal and international antiquities auction on Sunday April 9.

Earl-Smith, taking a cue from the old Lawsons tribal art sales that he once organised, rounds up a colossal mixture of art and artefacts from Oceania, Australia, South-East Asia and the Middle East.

The sale is at 2-4 Annandale Street, Annandale, with viewings from April 6. The catalogue can be accessed on www.guyearlsmith.com.au.

Science world agog

It's set the scientific world abuzz, or perhaps aglow. Bonhams, which will offer it on Tuesday in London, describes it as science's missing link and says it could be worth as much as #1 million ($2.44 million).

In the best auction house traditions, it was found forgotten in a cupboard at a country house in Hampshire during a routine valuation, after going missing back in the 1700s.

Effectively charting the birth of modern science, it's a massive, 7.6cm thick handwritten volume comprising Robert Hooke's minutes of the Royal Society, which records his work as curator of experiments from 1661 and his correspondence as secretary from 1677.

Sounds a bit dry but apparently it covers a vast range of experiments, the auctioneer says, including Hooke's famous exchange with Sir Isaac Newton over the motion of the planets and gravity, and the hitherto lost record confirming the first observation of microbes by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek.

Hooke was the man whose genius back in the era of the Great Fire of London is said to have given the world the reflecting telescope, the sextant, the universal joint, the iris diaphragm, the anchor escapement, the punched-paper record-keeper (the CD-ROM of its day), the wind gauge, the worm gear and the wheel barometer. It even charts the first sightings of bacteria, plant cells and spermatozoa.

Though his talents were arguably overlooked, Hooke is described as England's Leonardo da Vinci. Indeed Bonhams has probably pitched its chunky guesstimate of the book's value on a possible bid from Microsoft founder Bill Gates, which would then likely be matched by Britain's heritage authorities in order to keep the work in the country.

As well as software and philanthropy, of course, Gates is known for paying $US30.8 million at auction in 1994 for a 500-year-old da Vinci manuscript, the Coda Leicester, in 1994.

Olsen works leapfrog

John Olsen's trademark frogs certainly know how to jump. All six Olsen works offered at Deutscher-Menzies at its Sydney art auction earlier this month sold under the hammer, but only two fetched well above their presale estimates. Both were of frogs, with the watercolour Frog Studies (illustrated in this column recently) fetching $40,800 and the emaciated ink and wash Ah Frog, What Joy and Love $11,400. The others didn't feature any obvious frogs, though with Olsen you can never tell.

It's a saleroom convention that the lower end of the pre-sale estimate is the seller's reserve price, usually set after a modicum of horse-trading. More often than not, the estimates are a compromise between the expectations of ambitious vendors and an auctioneer anxious that the work looks attractively priced. Not all estimates are a realistic assessment of worth.

Other surprises at the sale included John Perceval's harbour scene The Hull, Williamstown at $198,000, more than three times the lower estimate, and Lin Onus's Water Lillies and Evening Reflections, Dingo Springs at $396,000, almost double the lower estimate. Including GST, this painting cost someone a hefty $415,800. Water Lillies set a new high for the Aboriginal artist, whose top previous price - according to Art Sales Digest - was $164,500 for Reflections, Barmah Forest at Deutscher-Menzies in November 2003.

Must be something about pond life that appeals to Sydneysiders.

© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home