Sale-rooms
High and dry
Alistair McAlpine
The bottom has almost fallen out of `gilt-edged' goods — the paintings, furni- ture and silver that everybody said at the time would hold their prices while all around them was in chaos — whereas the eccentric items that dealers in these high- class goods dismissed as junk are selling like hot cakes on cold Saturday mornings. Phillips' latest sale of 'Traditional River Craft and Ephemera' is a good example.
I must admit that I have always been fas- cinated by boats — the idea of boats, that is. I do not like going to sea in them one little bit, so river boats fit the bill exactly. I have a friend in Australia, now a Master of the Supreme Court of Western Australia. A sound and thoughtful man, as befits his position, he is of the opinion that if you get the feeling to buy either a gold mine or a boat, you should go outside and walk around until that feeling goes away. He is right, of course, for a boat that floats on the river at Henley-on-Thames and seems for all the world spick and span is not really a boat at all but a gigantic hole in the ground into which the lucky owner will have the pleasure of pouring money until such time as he decides to fill that hole in and sell his boat to some other mug.
I am still tempted, and lot 112 took me close to that fatal point. I was saved: the boat was withdrawn. Perhaps the owner could not bear to part with her, even at the £12,000 estimate. She is called Sweet Kate, 25 feet long with slipper stern chamfered right down to the water line, the most ele- gant of boats, built for the calm waters of the river Thames by Andrews of Bourne End.
I remember going for a ride in such a boat when I was a small boy — perhaps it Was Sweet Kate. We lived at Fawley Green, not far from Henley and the river, but we seldom took a boat on the Thames. My father drove the boat. He was an extremely talented man and I mean no criticism of him when I say that he had very little idea about boats and how they worked. That day we got as far as the lock at Hambleden. The river was busy and the lock packed with boats. We moved our boat close to the bank to make way for others. The lock started to empty and the boats were low- ered with the water. All, that is, except our boat, which had become entangled with the bank. Now, for those not familiar with Thames locks, the water drops about 20 feet. I must also explain that boats like Sweet Kate do not have benches to sit on, but rather wicker chairs that can be moved about, and that is exactly what happened to them as the boat hung on its side. The fur- niture, the picnic and almost everything else that was not attached started to fall overboard. The children were handed up to passers-by on the towpath, my parents scrambled out and there, suspended in mid-air, hung the beautiful craft that we had hired from Messrs Hobbs of Henley for the afternoon.
One veteran of Henley and the river Thames is the Bosporus, the launch used by the umpires at the regatta. Built by Hobbs of Henley, she is designed to make no wash as she cruises after the oarsmen. She sold for £5,500, far less than the estimate. The prize lot of the sale was a boat called Thames Esperanze, a steam launch built by Bonds of Maidenhead, which fetched £36,600, just above the high estimate.
If all of this brings back memories of sun-filled days lazing on the river, it was not a bit like that at the sale itself, for the heavens opened and it rained so hard that the auctioneer could not be heard for the noise of it on the canvas of the marquee.
These have been bleak days for the sale- rooms. Life has not been happy for the dealers, nor for their customers. The col- lection of a boating man is coming up for sale in Australia, though not, thank good- ness, of boats. My judicial friend need have no fear that I will be there bidding. This sale, at Christie's in Sydney, is of the rem- nants of Mr Alan Bond's collection of paintings. By remnants I do not mean that the pictures are not good, just that the Monets and Van Goghs have either been sold or are for sale elsewhere. How life has changed, for no one more so than for Mr Bond: one of Australia's richest men and now in jail.
This season in the sale-rooms has seen far fewer sales and not the best of items offered in them. In the ones that have been held, prices have been all over the shop in consequence. Last week, I came across an advertisement in an American magazine. `Dealers' auction', it read, 'every other Tuesday.' That in itself is not very remark- able, but it went on, 'Over 3,000 pieces of furniture sold every sale'. Now that is what I call an auction.
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