A ROUND the HOUSES

A complete set of early Beatles’ autographs, signed on a police charge sheet, sold for £3,400, more than tripling a pre-sale estimate of £600-£900 at the Leicestershire auctioneer’s recent sale. e vendor’s quick-thinking father acquired the signatures as a Newcastle police o cer. Working on shift on November 23, 1963 he was called on to drive the Fab Four to their hotel after a gig in the city. At the time the band was well known but “Beatlemania” had not yet hit. He took the opportunity to ask the band to sign the only piece of paper he had to hand – a police document for motoring o ences.

Che ns, Cambridge

A silver-gilt presentation cup awarded to William Scholes Withington for his “indefatigable zeal and intrepidity” in quelling the Peterloo Massacre in 1819 sold for £12,000, against an estimate of £4,000-£6,000 at the East Anglian auctioneers.

Withington’s troops took part in breaking up thousands of protestors at St Peter’s Fields in Manchester calling for franchise reform, which resulted in the deaths of up to 20 people.

At the same jewellery, watches and silver sale, described as the auction house’s “best ever”, a single row of natural saltwater pearls with a diamond-set clasp sold for ve times its low pre-sale estimate of £10,000 when it fetched £58,000.

Dreweatts, Newbury

A Ming-period cloisonné box discovered in the attic of a family home, which had been expected to make £6,000-£10,000, sold for £288,000 at the Berkshire auctioneer’s sale on May 18.

The sold for £288,000 against an estimate of £6,000£10,000 e small casket, 12.5cm in diameter, had been forgotten about since the death 77 years ago of its owner Major Edward Copleston Radcli e (1898-1967) who bought it for £19 at Sotheby’s in 1946. e box, decorated with pomegranates (an emblem of fertility) is the only one (of four) in private hands, with one of the others being in the Palace Museum, Beijing. All examples are doubly marked with an incised Xuande six-character reign mark on their underside.

Valuers spotted it as one of a lost group of important pieces made for Xuande, the fth Emperor of the Ming dynasty (1426-1435).

Tennants, Leyburn

A Persian copper pedestal bowl de ed its guide price of £500-£700 when it sold for £20,000 at the North Yorkshire auction house’s country house sale on May 13.

e bowl, which was lavishly decorated with calligraphy and gures and animals in a garden, was possibly made in the 17th century at the time of the Safavid Empire.

e Safavid dynasty, which reigned from 1501 to 1736, was one of Iran’s most signi cant periods and is considered the beginning of modern Iranian history.

Fellows, Birmingham

A Roman intaglio gold ring sold for 450 times its original estimate of £150 to hammer for £90,000 at the Midlands’ auction house after a 17-minute bidding war.

e garnet ring featured an intricate intaglio of a man’s head in pro le, described by the auction house as possibly depicting Augustus Caesar, the rst emperor of the Roman Empire, ruling from 27BC until 14AD.

Fellows’ Nicola Whittaker, said: “It is rare to see such an intricately carved piece in such ne condition and it was a privilege to o er the ring for sale in our recent auction”.

Richard Winterton Auctioneers, Lich eld

A pair of 13cm-tall vases bought by a Sta ordshire mum for just €8 at a Spanish car boot sale sold for £1,200 in May.

e auction house revealed the iridescent glassware, acquired ve years ago, was, in fact, a pair of art nouveau vases by renowned European manufacturer Loetz dating back to 1900. With trefoil-shaped upper rims, the vases are from Loetz’s Phänomen range dating from when the glassmaker was at the height of its success.

Relaxing sold for £25,000 at the inaugural sale

Olympia Auctions, London

Hamed

(19241990) The African Wizard sold for £20,000 at the same sale e auctioneer’s inaugural African and Middle Eastern auction in May re ected a growing global interest in the category. e sale, which focused on modern and contemporary art works with an emphasis on art from Egypt, saw a work by Ragheb Ayad (1892-1982) sell for £25,000, beating its estimate of £3,500£5,500; while Hamed Nada’s (1924-1990) e African Wizard sold for 20 times its low estimate of £1,000-£1,500.

Interest came from all over the world, in particular Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the UK. Head of sale, Janet Rady, said: “ e African and Middle Eastern art market has enjoyed signi cant growth in interest in recent years. I was delighted that paintings and sculpture from Morocco, South Africa, Syria and Iraq also drew keen bidders.”

Mallams, Oxford

An antique, gold-mounted, bloodstone circular box, 5cm in diameter, sold for £16,000 to an international phone bidder, well beating its estimate of £700-£900.

The box had the marks of the well-known Russian goldsmith e box had the marks for Michael Perchin (18601903) head workmaster at the Russian goldsmith and jewellery rm Fabergé between 1886 and 1903 and, with Henrik Wigström, responsible for producing almost all of the imperial Easter eggs.

Elsewhere, an early Victorian silver mantle clock, 41cm tall, sold for £6,200, several times its low £1,000 estimate.

Sporting gothic arch supports, the dial was engraved with enamel Roman chapters, by C. Williamson, Royal Exchange, London.

Mallams’ head of jewellery and watches, Louise Dennis, said: “Unusual items of antique silver and objets, such as the early Victorian mantle clock and the bloodstone box, were very well received, attracting several above-estimate bids.”

The auctioneer put hundreds of London street signs under the hammer

Catherine Southon, Chislehurst

A Westminster street sign for “Princes Street” was the surprise top seller in the Kent auctioneer’s onlinesale on May 18when it sold for £5,500, against an estimate of £200-£300.

e sale of 335 signs saw all the best-known streets in the capital represented, including 11 plaques devoted to “Regent Street” , all of which sold around the £800 mark, with “London Street W2” smashing its estimate of £60 to fetch £900.But it was “Princes Street” which really excited bidders’ imaginations, perhaps sparked by the recent sighting of Princes George and Louis at the King’s coronation.

The sale’s top lot, among 335 street signs, was “Princes Street W1”

e Canterbury Auction Gallery

While ceramics by the Vienna-born potter Lucie Rie (1902-1995) can sell for six gures, her tableware is more a ordable. A co ee cup and saucer, with an oatmeal, manganese glaze, decorated with ne sgra to lines, sold for £840 at the Kent auction house’s recent sale, just pipping its pre-sale guide price of £600-£800.

Rie, one of the nest Modernist potters of the 20th century, was born and trained in Vienna before leaving Austria in 1938 to escape the persecution of Jews. She established a new workshop in London where she created highly individual bowls, vases and tableware - all extremely collectable today.

Roseberys, London

A pair of Chinese jars bought in a charity shop for £20 sold for £46,000, beating their estimate of £30,000-£40,000 at the auctioneer’s recent sale.

e vendor of the 12cm (5in) Qianlong-period doucai jars spotted a label to the base of one reading ‘Ch’ien-lung’, the emperor from 1736 to 1796.

Both are finely painted in underglaze blue and enamelled in iron-red, yellow and green with a pattern of lotus and chrysanthemum blooms.

Pairs with covers have brought as much as £200,000in recent years.

Hansons, Etwall

A mitten worn by the expedition leader of the first British ascent of Everest in 1953, discovered in a shoebox, sold for £3,200 at the auctioneer’s Staffordshire saleroom on May 10– the marking the 70th anniversary of the famous trip.

e glove was worn by trip leader Sir John Hunt (1910-1998) who donated it in the 1970s to help raise money for a new Scout hut inNewtown, Powys.

The coffee cup and saucer by Lucie Rie (1902-1995) beat its pre-sale upper estimate of £800

Even without lids, the charity shop-bought jars sold for £46,000 and gilt design indicates it was made for first-class passengers

While Hunt and two other young climbers attempted the nal push for the summit, they were forced to turn back due to oxygen problems. ree days later Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay famously achieved the ascent.

At the same sale, a saucer-less and chipped cup, part of a range of ceramics by Spode made for the ill-fated Titanic, sold for £3,200, more than four times its estimate of £800.

The mitten worn by the leader of the1953 British Everest Expedition was found in a shoebox

Vasari (1511-1574). Writing in 1550, he used it to describe the “barbarous German style” of northern European architecture for which he blamed “the Goths” for replacing ancient buildings for the much-hated style.

Buildings were introduced with pointed arches, ying buttresses, trefoils and a much more perpendicular style. is change meant the ceilings and roofs could be much higher and towers much taller.

Gothic furniture

Over the centuries there have been several revivals of the gothic taste reflected in the furniture of the day. I came across this illustration ofa 16th-century oak hutch or food cupboard in Percy Macquoid’s History of English Furniture: Age of Oak volume 1, in which he dates it to about 1525.