Whitchurch auction attracts record sales
A record £250,000 worth of items sold at an auction in a town.
Whitchurch-based Trevanion and Dean recorded buoyant sales in all departments and record numbers of both domestic and international bidders at its latest auction.
Top selling lot of the day was a French Louis XVI style bedroom suite in the manner of Henry Dasson, purchased in 1963 for £550, the suite was hotly contested by some of the biggest names in the international furniture business before finally selling to one of seven telephone bidders for £16,500.
This was swiftly followed by an oil on canvas by Venetian artist Natale Schiavoni which sold for £10,500.
"The painting was just stunning in its composition and execution", explained auctioneer Aaron Dean.
"It is rare to find such a group of ladies, each as intricately detailed as the next. As an observer, you felt as if you were looking into a room where this group of ladies, possibly members of the same family, were all having a chat, it was almost as if they were going to step out of the painting."
With enormous pre-sale interest the auctioneers expected that it would quickly eclipse it's modest £1,000 to £2,000 estimate, and it swiftly did before finally selling to an online South African bidder for £10,500.
Other unusual results of note were £6,600 achieved for a carved marble statue attributed to Joseph Edgar Boehm of Orpheus' wife Eurydice.
Elsewhere in the saleroom, a collection of arts and crafts lighting sold for £11,500, much to the delight of the vendor who had been keeping some of the pieces in a garage for many decades.
The top selling lot in the jewellery section came in the form of something less sparkly.
In the summer of 2008, a metal detectorist was on his weekly outing in a field just outside Nantwich when he stumbled on quite a spectacular find, which came in the form of a black enamelled Momento Mori ring dated 1727.
"My knees buckled as soon as I saw this piece", said auctioneer Christina Trevanion.
"It came in during one of our weekly free valuation days at the Whitchurch saleroom, and I wandered around mesmerised by it and feeling like Gollum from Lord of the Rings for the rest of the day.
"It is such an exceptionally rare find. It is just phenomenal to think that it was buried in the ground for hundreds of years before finally seeing the light again. The enamel was in such good condition still, it was quite extraordinary, I found similar pieces by the same maker in The British Museum and in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Researching the piece was fascinating, it felt a little like being Sherlock Holmes, it just makes you wonder what other treasurers lie, undiscovered beneath our feet."
