Antiques

Les Grands Boulevards, Theatre du Vaudeville in the Winter Antoine Blanchard (1910-1988), oil on canvas, 31.5 cm x 44.5 cm

PARIS IN WINTER

Richard Bromell ASFAV, Charterhouse Auctioneers

Back in 1985, when I started working for Phillips Auctioneers in Long Street, Sherborne, there were seasonal variations in the auction market. You generally did not conduct auctions in the summer or December.

Moving forward to the 21st century, this has changed. The change has primarily been due to the arrival of the internet, resulting in dealers, collectors, museums and institutions being able to surf through online auction catalogues 24/7, as the Americans like to call it.

And this is a good thing. With the volume of business we carry out each month, if we were not to hold auctions in two months of the year, we would soon run out of space!

With a broad range of specialist auctions and departments, we do not just enter any lots into any auctions. A good example of this would be the gardenalia auctions – rather like kitchenalia relates to items from the kitchen, gardenalia relates to items from the garden. Back in November, we cleared a large country property which included a great range of garden statuary and benches. The next available auction was in December, but having discussed their sale with the owner, we stored them until our March gardenalia auction where the days are longer, the grass is growing, the bulbs are out, and we are all spending time in the garden feeling the joys of spring and not counting down to the shortest day.

However, sometimes there are exceptions to seasonal variations.

Recently, we cleared a large house in Bournemouth. The gentleman who passed away had lived a long and good life. During his career, he was a linguist and lecturer in Russian. As an academic, he amassed somewhere in the region of 10,000 books in Russian or about Russia. Needless to say, a small library wing was added onto the home to accomodate them. Much to the relief of our chaps, who would have had to remove all the books, they were bequeathed in his will to a former student, and we were not involved in their removal.

The family had lived in the property for two generations or some 70 years. Not much had changed during this time. In many ways, it was quite captivating. As a small child, the owner had his bedroom wallpapered. I’m guessing this was in the 1950s and yes, in 2021, it was still there – never having been decorated over!

Walking around this 1950s time-warp house, dotted about with bronze busts of Lenin, and row upon row of books, there was one painting which stood out to me. The picture was painted by Antoine Blanchard. Marcel Masson was born on the banks of the Loire in 1910 and painted under the pseudonym Antoine Blanchard. He was best known for his Parisian scenes in bygone days and the oil painting by him we are selling is of the Theatre du Vaudeville. In addition to Antoine painting his Parisian scenes, he also painted the same picture in the different seasons – our picture being painted with snow in winter.

Whether this will put anyone off at auction in April… I suspect not.

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CHARTERHOUSE

Auctioneers & Valuers

Forthcoming Auction Programme

Pictures, Books & Maps Thursday 8th April

Sporting, Hunting, Shooting & Fishing Items Thursday 8th April

Asian Ceramics & Art Friday 9th April

Ceramics, Antiques & Interiors Friday 9th April

Classic & Vintage Motorcycles Wednesday 30th June

Classic & Vintage Cars Wednesday 14th July

Cricket memorabilia including a bat signed by England & Australia 1938 Ashes Teams in our April Sporting Sale Contact Richard Bromell for advice on single items and complete collections

Valuations for Probate and Insurance The Long Street Salerooms, Sherborne DT9 3BS 01935 812277 www.charterhouse-auction.com