News and Opinion — Year 2016

The cream brick veneer exterior – admittedly with magnificently manicured large lawns and gardens – belies the plushness of the interior at 14 Otway Street, Holland Park in Brisbane with furnishings to rival those seen in Buckingham Palace, according to Mossgreen’s antiques and decorative arts specialist Jennifer Gibson.

Many of the items to be auctioned – from 2pm Sunday December 18 – are fit for a queen, including a pair of William IV sterling silver Rococo Revival soup tureens made in 1835 by Henry Wilkinson and Co in Sheffield.

A rare 700-year-old banknote discovered by Mossgreen specialists inside an ancient Chinese sculpture will be a major drawcard to the auction house’s sale of The Raphy Star Collection of Important Asian Art  on Sunday December 11 at 36-40 Queen Street, Woollahra in Sydney.

The banknote was found inside the head of the large wooden sculpture Luohan – a Chinese word for a ‘perfected person’ or one who has reached Enlightenment.

Collectors of Chinese porcelain will be pleased to see a single-owner collection put up for auction, largely unreserved, at Aingers on Sunday 11 December.

Approximately 120 lots of porcelain, furniture and paintings were conscientiously collected over many decades by Stanley Crawford Stevens, beginning in London in the 1950’s with his wife, Constance – importantly, a period long before collecting Chinese porcelain became popular in Western countries. 

The collection was primarily sourced during their many trips to Europe - particularly from the top London dealers and collections of aristocratic families.   The couple always made a point of being in town for the Grosvenor House Antiques Fair and were also particularly attracted to Bond Street, where they formed an association with John Spinks & Son and John Sparks – both highly respected antique dealers specialising in oriental antiques.

An unprecedented offering of diamonds will go under the hammer at Leonard Joel’s final Fine Jewellery sale for the year in Melbourne.  Suiting budgets from $1000 to $100,000, the diamonds on offer are in a variety of styles and settings, and include numerous examples of what is widely known and accepted as the “ideal cut”.

The largest collection of furniture by Australia’s best known designer Grant Featherston (1922-1995) ever to be auctioned – a significant event for design enthusiasts, collectors and creative people – is part of the Leonard Joel Modern Design sale from 6.30pm Thursday November 10 at 333 Malvern Road, South Yarra. 

Assembled by Melbourne architect Cameron Lyon, the venture began as a project to build an encyclopaedic collection of the designer’s works.

An early 20th century Chinese headdress pictured on the front cover of the auction catalogue is a major highlight of Mossgreen’s three-day international decorative arts sale from 4pm Sunday November 6 at 926-930 High Street, Armadale.

The auction, which contains several private collections, features a comprehensive range of antique furniture, sterling silver, porcelain and other notable collectables – with the sale continuing until Tuesday November 8.

An international decorative arts auction containing items from three private collections – including those of controversial Australian restaurant critic Leo Schofield – will go under the hammer from noon Sunday October 30 at Mossgreen’s Sydney office 36-40 Queen Street, Woollahra.

Schofield, who has a had a lengthy career as a journalist, advertising professional, creative arts festival director and trustee of arts and cultural organisations, has several fine Regency pieces of furniture (including a giltwood mirror and George IV mahogany chiffonier) and Tasmania’s Marjorie Bligh (1917-2013) autobiographical quilt among his collection.

There was never a dull moment when 420 lots of tribal art and taxidermy went under the hammer at Dunbar Sloane's artefact auction held in the Visitor Center at Auckland's Holy Trinity Cathedral at the top of Parnell Rise in Auckland on 19 October.

Consisting primarily of two important private collections and a miscellany of other works from here there and everywhere, the first section of 44 lots comprised material from the African Continent.

A magnificent collection of antiques that belonged to Toorak couple the late Bruce Reid and his late wife Joy Gertrude Beattie is the highlight of E.J. Ainger’s special two-day sale from 11am on both Saturday October 22 and Sunday October 23 at 433 Bridge Road, Richmond.

Bruce’s great-grandfather William Reid, a prominent banking and racing identity of the early 20th century, started the collection, which has been cherished and handed down through several generations.

Likewise, the inaugural head of the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology (established in 1908), H.A. Hunt, left part of his collection to his granddaughter Joy.

Her father also was a keen appreciator of fine arts and lived only a few doors away from their home in Power Avenue, Toorak.

According to Aingers, the collection of Victorian furniture is one of the finest it has ever offered at auction.

Maritime items, folk art, Aboriginal and tribal artefacts and artworks, pottery, books and historical documents, silver, convict memorabilia and antique furniture comprise part two of Mossgreen’s Australian History auction from 10am Monday October 17 at 926-930 High Street, Armadale.

Some of the more interesting items include a circa 1905 naval commander’s dress uniform with Queen Victoria buttons once belonging to T.E.J. Bigg and a 61-centimtere long William Ricketts (1898-1993) pottery coolamon with applied kangaroos and an Aboriginal tribal elder.

While outside, the weather was extremely blustery - even for Hobart on a winter’s day - Mossgreen’s auctioneers enjoyed relatively smooth sailing inside the Henry Jones IXL Art Hotel when the David and Leslie Frost collection was offered for sale there on October 9.

Only 50 of the 374 lots in the auction went unsold and the sale grossed a comfortably-over-estimate $491,000 including buyers premium.

The most significant Tasmanian collection to hit the Australian auction market in living memory will be sold from noon Sunday October 9 by Mossgreen at the Henry Jones Art Hotel, 25 Hunter Street, Hobart.

The collection, comprising Tasmanian colonial furniture, maritime objects and antiques, belongs to David and Leslie Frost and has attracted enormous national and international attention.

Australian sleepers are still being smoked out in foreign fields – internet or not. But it takes lot of hard work, experience and serendipity to find them and place them in an appreciative home that proves they were just that.

Two offerings at various levels of sleepfulness have come to the attention of web based saleroom habitues attention lately. One was a group of attractive pieces of gold-fields jewellery on the well worn paths of traditional sleeper territory, a UK regional auction and in the heart of the Cotswolds, which has one of the strongest concentrations of antique traders in the world.

A rich and diverse family collection of paintings, objects d’art, jewellery and ephemera amassed over some 100 years will go to auction on 7th August at Aingers in Melbourne.

The collection belonged to the well-heeled and well connected McPherson family - headed up by the eminent and respected pastoralist and leader of primary industry, Sir Clive McPherson. 

Mossgreen’s three-day International Decorative Arts auction in Melbourne from  Sunday July 31 contains a strong selection of sterling silver including a rare and imposing silver Victorian copy of the Warwick vase on stand, by Benjamin Smith II and dated London 1841.

The vase features relief masks of Hercules and Bacchus and sits on a square marble block containing the arms and motto of its original owner Johann Edwards.

Fifteen Fred Williams etchings dating from 1954-1967 from the Raymond and Diana Kidd collection will be a strong highlight of Sotheby’s Australia’s forthcoming diverse international arts and design auction from 6pm July 19 at The Hughenden, 14 Queen Street, Woollahra in Sydney.

Acquired during the 1970s and 1980s, the etchings show the great craftsmanship and skill of one of Australia’s greatest landscape artists.

The collection includes works by Australian modern masters Charles Blackman, Robert Dickerson, Jon Molvig, Sidney Nolan, William Robinson and Tony Tuckson.

A rather crumpled and limp old black cotton ''singlet'' (lot 194) that once belonged to New Zealand's greatest sporting hero of the 20th century Sir Peter Snell K.N.Z.M. O.B.E.sold very well in Auckland at Cordy's June Antique and Art Sale.

The quirky old Copping Colonial & Convict Museum, along the road to Port Arthur in Tasmania, is closing its doors after almost 70 years.  The museum was first established in the 1950s by Jack Smith, as a side-interest to his service station operating next door.  ‘Scavenger Jack’ as he was locally known, was an eccentric and opportunistic collector who sourced many items of historical importance from local property owners at a time when convict memorabilia was not as widely collected and valued as it is today.

An extremely rare cedar long case clock, made by convict clockmaker Francis Abbott, will be appearing at auction in Hobart on Saturday, 18 June.

A 1960 self-portrait of Australian artist Ernest Buckmaster has been discovered as the backing for another of his paintings earmarked for auction at E.J. Ainger’s two-day special sale from 11am Saturday May 21 and Sunday May 22 at 433 Bridge Road, Richmond.

Discovered by the restorer who was busy cleaning the auction painting for Aingers (a seascape of Mentone – where Buckmaster lived during the 1930s and 1940s), the self-portrait has been fitted to a canvas, mounted in a beautiful period frame and also will be part of the sale.