A Touch of Frost at Chorley's Modern Art & Design sale
Studio ceramics by celebrated ceramicist and best-selling author of The Hare with Amber Eyes Edmund de Waal led the top lots at Chorley’s Modern Art & Design sale on 15th October. Other highlights from the auction that made over £100,000 include pictures and prints by Tracey Emin, Terry Frost and Stephen Tennant as well as furniture by Gordon Russell and Charles and Ray Eames.
An Edmund de Waal porcelain bowl more than quadrupled its original estimate to achieve a remarkable £3,800 and a de Waal porcelain bottle vase achieved £2,800. Other ceramics highlights include the sale of a porcelain bowl by Australian ceramicist Gwyn Hanssen Pigott for an impressive £3,000 and a square stoneware bottle vase and dish by Shimaoka Tatsuzo, originally purchased from Gallerie Besson, that acheived £1,300.
Other highly anticipated lots included Tracey Emin’s signed My Favourite Little Bird (2010) offset lithograph poster printed in colours on silk finish paper that achieved £800 and Terry’s Frost’s colourful Orange and Blue Q Newlyn (1997) that sold for £850. Belle Marquise, a Stephen Tennant watercolour, achieved £1,100. Tennant was a British socialite in the 1920s and '30s. Dubbed "The Brightest" of the Bright Young Things, he was the lover of poet Siegfried Sassoon and the inspiration for characters in books by his friends Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford.
Among the furniture, a walnut chest of drawers by Gordon Russell far surpassed its original estimate of £400-600 to achieve £1,800 and a Gordon Russell workshops English brown oak longcase clock realised an impressive £3,200. A model 670 lounge chair and 671 ottoman by Charles & Ray Eames for Herman Miller – one of the most iconic furniture designs of the 20th Century - sold for £2,200.
The results show there is plenty of interest in craftsmanship and design from this period whether it's gems from the Arts & Crafts era, the glamour and luxury of the thirties or the popular 20th & 21st Centuries. There was something to fit everyone's budget and style and hopefully many have been tempted to start their own collections.
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