February post-sale highlights from The Canterbury Auction Galleries. 

Our February auction launched 2025 in blistering style, with many high-ticket, high-quality items selling to a LOT of eager bidders around the world. Here are a few highlights - and a few results that surprised even us!

Firstly, the sale was unusual in that a whole day featured the lovely collection of late artist and goldsmith Polly Gasston-Coburn. Her taste in beautiful and unusual things showed in the prices achieved. So let’s start there…   

Unsurprisingly, Polly had a good eye for gold and silver. If she had a glass of wine in the evening, she would drink it out of a 22ct gold beaker, which she specially commissioned by George Lukes. It broke even our high estimate to sell for £9,600. We guess she would drink to that.  

Equally, her specially-commissioned life-size figures of a hen and cock pheasant, crafted in silver by George’s son Tim Lukes, doubled our estimate and a lucky buyer bagged the brace for £11,500.  

There was a collection of more than a dozen contemporary hand-crafted silver caddy spoons, which all sold so well that we all needed a cuppa after the auction. This silver gilt one by Andrew Bird sold for £440, for instance, and this one by Graham Stewart in Edinburgh - its handle set with an amethyst - sold for £480.    

ART

Polly was a keen artist and loved bright colours. She mixed combined this with her family history of goldsmithing in a gorgeous artwork of Lady Jane Phillips Irises on a gilt background, by Kent artist Joseph Sevier (born 1961). She commissioned this in person from him for her home, Harbour House, Ramsgate. The background gold is 23ct and the gesso'd panel was incised and punched using a tool once belonging to her silversmith grandfather Alfred (1893-1920). The artist found the commission so special, and became such a friend, he brought it himself for £1,650.

A splashy still life of a vase of white lilies against red, signed by artist Sue Fitzgerald (20th/21st Century School) bounced our estimate too, to reach £1,050. And an oil painting of Pentle Beach, Tresco, by John Miller (1931-2002) using EXACTLY the right Scilly Isles colours sold for £2,100. 

We didn’t know how these tiny, beautiful and realistic miniature replicas of birds would sell, so unique were they. Luckily, bidders loved the collection as much as we did. They had an amazing history, made by a daring WW1 pilot, Squadron Leader H. E. Tim Hervey (1895-1990). This astonishing man once duelled mid-air with the Red Baron and, when later shot down, escaped three times. He loved nature and created unique, three-dimensional artworks so realistic that more than one observer thought that they were real birds that had been killed and shrunk . They were made from natural materials like catkins, flowers, twigs and feathers, against a hand-painted landscape. Queen Mary and our late Queen Elizabeth collected them. This lot of eight ‘pictures’ (of 39 in total) alone fetched £960 over our cautious estimate of £80-120. 

CERAMICS AND MORE

Polly and her equally lively and cheerful sister dubbed this massive 19th Century Sevres celadon porcelain jardiniere the ‘baby bath’. Lavishly decorated and 32ins wide x 20ins high, supported on two ormolu dolphins, on red veined marble plinth, it was thought to have been made for the Paris Universal Exhibition. It sold for £8,400. 

On a similarly large scale was this Japanese Cloisonne enamel vase from the Meiji Period, enamelled in beautiful colours with birds and flowering branches it was nearly a metre high (37 ins) and sold for £2,800.

And at 89 ins high was this quirky Italian giltwood standard lamp featuring a Moorish boy wearing a gilt jacket holding aloft a gilt electric candelabra. It sold for £1,350.   Back to the ‘normal’ sale, and many good things sold exceptionally well.

UNUSUAL

This intricate 19th century gilt and brass industrial steam hammer clock by Guilmet, Paris had a silvered hammer moves up and down in time with the pendulum. Two workmen watch on and it’s all mounted on a slate base with brass feet, complete with candelabra in the form of mills. At 18.5ins high overall it sold for £5,000.

Japanese ‘inro’ are tiny and extravagantly-decorated cases for holding small objects like pills, worn suspended from the sash around one’s kimono. They were mainly made of wood and leather coated with lacquer, with inlays of materials like ivory or mother of pearl. This black five-case Inro, signed Koma Kansai was exquisitely decorated in gold, silver and red, including a horse and Mount Fuji! It sold for £700. 

We are really happy that his collection of SAS ephemera went to a really appreciative home. Fans of TV’s Rogue Heroes would have been fascinated by this collection, once owned by Major John Duckett, who saw action in many post-war conflicts. It sold for £840. 

This gorgeous Namiki fountain pen, by Alfred Dunhill of London, smothered in Japanese-inspired gold inlay surprised even us by selling for more than double our estimate to reach £3,600.

And these fascinating miniature cylinder music boxes by Nicole Freres, with a selection of parts all contained in a mahogany case, sold for £1,550. 

On a totally different scale was a massive 19th Century carved gilt mirror, 6ft 5 by 5ft 5ins, in a ‘Chinese Chippendale’ style. Topped by Ho Ho birds and carved all over with leaves and flowers, it was originally from Gate Burton Hall, Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, now owned by The Landmark Trust. It sold for £3,700. 

Motorsport fans appreciated this complete Leica photographic set, once belonging to Daily Mail press photographer Harold Gordon Webb. He was also an early press officer at Brookland Race Track and raced himself in the Fifties. The kit still contained his press and marshal’s armbands along with a Leica IIIB Camera, a range of lenses, a pair of Carl Zeiss binoculars, a stopwatch, light meter and tripod. It comes with three original Brooklands race track photos by the man himself, all within a custom leather case bearing his initials. This atmospheric piece of history sold for £1,050. 

And from a similar glamorous heyday was a collection of nine very early Ian Fleming books with original , fab, dust jackets. Our fave jacket was the ghoulish “Goldfinger”, published by Jonathan Cape, London, 1959, which sold for £290.  

ART AND CERAMICS

This big, beautiful oil painting of Poppies and apples, by Kent artist Kenneth Newton (1933-1984) sold to a collector of his work. Newton was seen as the most outstanding Royal Academy student of his generation, scooping first prize medals for drawing, portrait, landscape and life painting. He loved dark still life works and flower paintings and was influenced by Velasquez and much Spanish art. It sold for £5,200.  

Collectors and enthusiasts love delicate Meissen porcelain and this group of the three graces, after Emmerich Andresen, proved it by selling over estimate for a healthy £3,500.   Chinese cloisonne is also hugely popular among collectors. This intricate bowl from the Qing dynasty was decorated with flowers and archaic symbols with a gilt interior. It sold for a rightful £3,800.  

And these humble 19th Century stoneware bottles, which used to contain boot polish, came with a big story. They came from T Warren’s rat-infested Liquid Blacking factory in London, where the genteelly brought-up Charles Dickens was sent to work at the age of 11 as his father had been thrown into debtors’ prison. Even though short-lived, it  was an experience that never left him and the grim life he saw ended up being woven through his future works. Did young Charles handle these bottles? We’ll never know! All that history sold for £2,700.   

 JEWELS AND SILVER  

Ladies’ watches don’t come much more classic and sought-after than the squared-off Cartier Santos. This one, in an 18ct gold case, its winder set with a blue cabochon stone, sold over estimate for £5,200.  

There was a LOT of gold, too, in this heavy charm bracelet suspended with six mounted sovereigns and seven charms. It positively clanked off to its new owner for £4,100.  

Another name that always sells is Tiffany, and this 18ct gold and diamond crossover ring was no exception. It was the "Melody" model by Paloma Picasso and, with its Tiffany box and original receipt, it was a steal at £2,500.  

Another steal was this superb 18ct gold ring, set with a rare centre Asscher-cut diamond, flanked either side three small brilliant cut white diamonds. This unusual square cut is both dramatic and expensive as it has to waste so much diamond in the process. It sold for £3,300.  

Hands up who knows what a ‘nef’ is?

It’s the name of a completely OTT table ornament and container in the shape of a ship (deriving from a 17th century French word for a sailing ship). Ancient examples were used for drinking vessels and evolved to hold things inside the boat’s hull, like salt and pepper, napkins and cutlery. Many had wheels so diners could have fun passing items to each other. The nef in this auction was one that we suspect was used in the yacht of Kaiser Wilhelm II, eldest grandson of Queen Victoria. Made by Bruce James Talbert (1838-1881) for Cox & Son it was a 19th Century silver-plated Nef in the form of a boat, mounted on wheels, the bow adorned with a Viking-style dragon and the base engraved ‘KAISER WILHELM 11 SMY Hohenzollern 11’. (The Kaiser’s yacht ‘SMY Hohenzollern II’ was in service from June 1892 – 1920. ) This dinner-party talking point sold well over estimate at £1,600. Pass the salt!  

Lastly, we were all glad to see that someone else was as amused as us by this brilliant little 1930s tin-plate clockwork frog by George Kellerman. The green frog’s hands snap together to try and catch the fly hovering tantalisingly on a wire in front of him. At just 4.75ins high someone ‘snapped’ it up for £190.

The next sale will be held on March 28 and 29 and will be a special one for collectors of retro computer ganes and consoles. Remember - register to bid first. www.thecanterburyauctiongalleries.com