Notes for Collectors
Picruims have not figured largely in the London sale- rooms of late. A collection of modern paintings and drawings last week attracted little interest, and examples of pre-War Academy favourites were to be had cheap. A typical little picture of a young shepherd with his flock, by that charming artist, the late Edward Stott, however, fetched nearly £100. But Millais' large landscape, Murthly Water, painted in 1888 and sold in 1891 for £1,522, now brought no more than £47. It is not always the case, then, that the artist benefits less by his work than the dealer or speculator at a later date. An imposing sea-piece by George Farquharson, dated 1904, found a buyer for the ridiculous sum of •three guineas—less than the cost of the frame. Christie's rooms have been mainly filled with old silver, china and furniture, the demand for which, if it is good, seems insatiable.. Picruims have not figured largely in the London sale- rooms of late. A collection of modern paintings and drawings last week attracted little interest, and examples of pre-War Academy favourites were to be had cheap. A typical little picture of a young shepherd with his flock, by that charming artist, the late Edward Stott, however, fetched nearly £100. But Millais' large landscape, Murthly Water, painted in 1888 and sold in 1891 for £1,522, now brought no more than £47. It is not always the case, then, that the artist benefits less by his work than the dealer or speculator at a later date. An imposing sea-piece by George Farquharson, dated 1904, found a buyer for the ridiculous sum of •three guineas—less than the cost of the frame. Christie's rooms have been mainly filled with old silver, china and furniture, the demand for which, if it is good, seems insatiable.. A rare and beautiful Elizabethan piece came up at Christie's a fortnight ago. It was a rock-crystal cup, delicately engraved, and mounted in silver-gilt with a figure of a soldier on the elaborate cover. Thomas Bampton, who made it in 1572, was a notable craftsman ; and his cup, which brought £1,500, is worthy of his reputation. In the same sale a plain silver goblet with the London hall-mark-of 1626 fetched £427, or over £50 an ounce, so passionately do _enthusiasts compete for English silver of the Stuart period. Even a curious salt cellar with a base of lava and a spray of red coral on the silver cover, of about the same date, was run up to £110.
At Hurcomb's, on. March 28th, a plain octagonal silver tray of 1730, weighing one hundred and twenty-seven ounces, fetched as much as £1,079, and an antique pepper-pot, weighing only two ounces, £59. , A curious item, sold for £140 at the same rooms last week, was a silver-gilt whistle, with chain, awarded to John Pascoe, boatswain of H.M.S. `Antelope,' who distinguished himself off Jamaica in 1793 in an action with the' Atlanta,' a French privateer carrying more guns and three- times as many men. When the skipper was killed and the mate disabled, Pascoe took command of the little " packet " or dispatch vessel, fought the Frenchman to a standstill and carried him into Port Royal. The bosun's whistle is the memorial of a gallant sailor. Last week at Christie's a pair of old Worcester vases with covers, having a dark blue scale-pattern ground and the usual exotic birds, sold for £299, and an uncommon emblematic figure of the Virgin, in Fulda porcelain, for £199. Porcelain of the right sort is always in request, but European earthenware is apparently still left to the experts, to judge from the moderate prices paid for Moustiers and Rouen ware and similar fabrics.
Tapestries and Oriental carpets, like old embroideries, are the rage. At Messrs. Robinson, Fisher and Hardings, on March 26th, an unusual Agra carpet in the Persian style, measuring about twenty feet by twelve with a red ground and black borders, fetched £1,050. Another Agra carpet, somewhat larger,- fetched £693, and a panel of old Brussels. tapestry, with a pastoral scene after Boucher, £420. In the same sale there was a wonderful Chinese cabinet, in tortoiseshell and lacquer, three feet wide, which brought no less than £924. '
Prints of the English school have been notable in Messrs. Sotheby's recent sales, and the demand for coloured engravings of George III's time does not slacken. Next week this firm is to sell some excep- tionally interesting books, including a first edition of Fanny Burney's Evelina, which is seldom seen, as now, in its original boards. Fanny got £20 for her book in 1778, but the first edition is now so scarce that Messrs. Sawyer and Walton in their " English Books " do not venture to fix a price beyond saying that it may cost from £100 to £150, and in boards twice as much. Hera is one interesting example, out of many, of the rapid appreciation in the value of our eighteenth-century classics in their original form. It may be noted that Messrs. Robinson, Fisher and Harding the other day sold the third edition of Chippendale's Director (1762) for no less than £120, and that Messrs. Puttick and Simpson in a recent auction offered a copy of Mr. Shaw's Perfect Wagnerite of 1898 which specialist collectors covet mightily in its first edition. - Stamp collectors, or philatelists, as some of them like to be called, will have an unusual opportunity on April 28th; when Mr. H. R. Harmer is offering a remark- able collection of French postage stamps, dating from 1849 onwards. The designs were always good from the outset ; Franee has been happier than England in this respect. But collectors are less concerned with artistic merit than with. rarity, as in the unused black, of four fifteen centime stamps, in green on bluish green,. with the laurel-crowned head of the Second Republic, which was catalogued at 60,000 francs some years ago. Those early Republican issues are well represented and of much interest. A pair of the ten centime bigtre, of 1852, has the obliterating stamp of the Papal States, showing that the stamp was used by the French Army in Italy protecting the Pope. The stamps of 1870„ issued from Bordeaux, include examples of those used for the balloon post to and from beleaguered Paris. The catalogue of the sale, carefully prepared and well illus- trated is worth preserving for reference.
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