AUCTION Sales round up Noonans, Mayfair
The Celadon vase included a poem by the Qianlong Emperor
A hoard of 142 Roman silver coins unearthed by three metal-detectorists in a Wiltshire field sold for £81,160 at the London The auction house, (previously Romanknown as Dix Noonan Webb) on May 17. hoard was The hoard was buried around AD 410 unearthed over a when Emperor Honorius was recalled to weekend in Wiltshire Rome and Roman rule in Britain dwindled. Noonans’ specialist, Nigel Mills, said: “As a result, Britain became a treasure island of late 4th century and early 5th century coins as the local population buried their valuables which then fell victim to Saxon raids.”
Adam Partridge, Macclesfield
AROUND the HOUSES
From a set of opium weigths to a tailless clockwork elephant, there has been much in recent sales to delight collectors Woolley and Wallis, Salisbury A rare, 18th-century celadon jade vase smashed its guide price of £10,000£20,000 selling for £250,000 at the Wiltshire auctioneer’s sale on May 17. The Qianlong vase, which has the four-character Qianlong Yu Wan mark on the base, came with a 1963 receipt from Spink & Son for £1,100, stating it came from the collection of Queen Maria of Yugoslavia, granddaughter of Queen Victoria. It was inscribed with a poem on its base, composed by the Qianlong Emperor, a passionate collector of antiques, translating as: “Modern designs are too vulgar to use, and so instead I have imitated an archaic style.”
12 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
The lot came with a receipt stating it once belonged to the Queen of Yugoslavia
A stoneware vase by Hans Coper (1920-1981), which was exhibited at the potter’s first one-man show in London in 1958, sold for £13,000 at the Cheshire auctioneer’s recent sale, beating its low presale estimate of £7,000. A German Jew, Coper fled Germany for London in 1939 and, through a chance introduction, heard of a fellow refugee potter from Vienna who needed assistance in the production of ceramic buttons. So began the remarkable artistic partnership between Coper and Lucie Rie. Coper was given a solo exhibition by the gallerist Henry Rothschild The at Primavera, angular Sloane Street, vase appeared in Coper’s first in 1958, and its one-man show at success spurred Primavera future and fuller achievements.
Hansons, Etwell An antique medicine chest uncovered in Leicester, still containing potions for ailments 210 years later, sold for £360 at the Derbyshire auctioneer’s recent sale. The pink velvet interior of the rosewood apothecary box, c.1810, housed Gregory powder (made from rhubarb and used as a laxative), Epsom salts, soda, magnesia and belladonna (taken as a sedative, or to stop whooping cough). Two lead compartments also contained ancient pills from ‘Savory & Moore, Chemists To The King, Belgrave Square, London’.
The medicine box, c. 1810, was found in Leicester and included ancient pills
