The Cheffins Art and Design sale which took place on 24th and 25th October, saw an array of above estimate hammer prices being achieved across the 700+ lots as frantic bidding took place from both in-room and online buyers.
01/11/2024 Paintings, Drawings & Prints, Sculpture & Works of Art
The brilliantly avant-garde Christopher Dresser electroplated teapot (lot 205, pictured below), designed circa 1880 and guided at £12,000-£18,000, achieved £63,000 after a fierce telephone battle between two determined bidders - it is a rare example of Christopher Dresser’s work, with probably no more than twelve known to exist.
Above guide prices were also achieved for the artist Elisabeth Vellacott’s work – ‘Pebble Beach: Rocks and Paddlers’, circa late 1970s (lot 438, pictured below), sold for £19,000, a record for the artist, whilst 'Inside Outside 2: The Ghosts in the Garden’, dated 1966, achieved £13,000. Both works trounced their £3,000-£5,000 catalogue estimates.
Portraits by Catherine Giles from the Quentin Stevenson collection also sold well with lot 452, a pencil drawing of Jessica Dismorr circa 1905-08, selling for £2,200 and an oil on gessoed board self portrait, circa 1930 (lot 453), going under the hammer for £5,500 – over ten times its £300-£500 estimate.
The still lifes by Eliot Hodgkinson saw competitive bidding and achieved above estimate prices with Six Pears (lot 488) selling for £19,000 against a £10,000-£15,000 catalogue price and ‘Seven Green and White Turnips’ (lot 489, pictured below) realising £17,000 against a £7,000-£10,000 estimate.
Abstract paintings also sold well - ‘five reds, four discs’, dated May 1965, an oil on canvas by pioneering British abstract painter, Patrick Heron CBE (1920) went under the hammer for £48,000.
Martin Millard, Equity Director at Cheffins, comments: “The breadth of quality on offer drew widespread interest from around the globe, and we were delighted to welcome over 160 new buyers. The results speak for themselves, yet again demonstrating the appetite for quality, fresh to market goods, despite wider economic uncertainty.”