Highlands Rangers On The Prowl
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday May 25, 1993
Medical people and lawyers not only enjoy high incomes but often have a discerning eye.
Perhaps that's why they're often serious collectors of furniture, silver and other fine things, including oriental rugs.
A case in point is the collection of Dr and Mrs E. W. Pockley, sold at their Wildes Meadow (near Bowral) home on May 23 by Lawsons. Buoyant prices included a pair of old Sheffield plate wine coolers which sold for $1,900, plus 10 per cent buyer's premium; a Queen Anne chest of drawers, $4,200; a 17th-century gateleg table, also $4,200; an 1842 cast iron console table with marble top, $4,500; a William and Mary oak chest, $4,000; and an Ellis Rowan gouache, $1,400. Last but not least, a pair of English riding boots complete with shoe-trees brought $250. Seems the Highlands rangers were out in force.
Among a number of oriental rugs to change hands in brisk bidding were a 19th-century Caucasian Kazak rug two metres long which brought $3,500, and a 2.5m Shirvan sold for $3,400. An unusual small Ersari Turkman made around 1850, but patched and repaired, fetched just $600.
KOOKAS IN LONDON
Australian flora and fauna were prominent decorative motifs in the early post-federation years amid swelling national pride and the burgeoning arts and crafts movement. But Aussie emblems also enlivened foreign products, including Royal Worcester porcelain, and some are offered tonight by the auctioneers Phillips in London.
Walter Powell painted the kookaburras on the Royal Worcester coffee pot and cover (estimated to sell for Pound 500 to Pound 700, or $1,100 to $1,550), and the cup, saucer and matching sugar bowl (Pound 200 to Pound 300 for the three).
George Johnson did the Aborigines on the pair of coffee cups and saucers(Pound 400 to Pound 600). Two more pairs of coffee cups show bellflowers, wattle and flannel flowers (Pound 350 to Pound 450 each pair). All bear the Flavelle Brothers mark. There's still time to bid through Phillips in Woollahra (326 1588).
ON THE CARPET
Oriental carpets are one of those areas where, if you're going to pay serious money, you either should buy through a dealer you can trust or get to know a fair bit about the subject. How do you get to know? Patronise exhibitions held by reputable specialist dealers and familiarise yourself with the look and handle of quality pieces. Two upcoming are Pyrmont's Nomadic Rug Traders (660 3753) annual exhibition of tribal and other rugs from May 29, and Paddington's Sarum Gallery Indigo (360 5713) showing prayer rugs in June. Serious rug fanciers also keep up with the trends by subscribing to catalogues put out by Sotheby's, Christie's, or Phillips.
Rug books are collectable in their own right. Best recent offerings: Jon Thomson's Carpets from the Tents, Cottages and Workshops of Asia (Barrie &Jenkins, UK, about $45), James Opie's Tribal Rugs (Laurence King, UK, about$165), and Bruggemann and Bohmer's Rugs of the Peasants and Nomads of Anatolia(Kunst & Antiquaten, Munich, about $160).
They're hard to find but rewarding. Try the curiously-named Gaanetgetal Books (519 5536) in Camperdown or All Arts Bookshop (328 6774) at Woollahra Antiques Centre.
LIFE IN STILL LIFE
It seems life is returning to the near-comatose 20th century and Impressionist art - a field that was extensively over-grazed by the wealthy entrepreneurs of the late 1980s. Paul Cezanne's Still Life with Apples changed hands at Sotheby's New York for $US28.6 million ($41 million) on May 12. The sale, a world record for the artist, was gleefully acclaimed in the down-sized art trade as the first $20 million-plus sale since the golden days of May 1990- when Van Gogh's Portrait of Doctor Gachet ($US82.5 million) and Renoir's Moulin de la Galette ($US78.1 million) were sold in quick succession to a Japanese buyer.
TAKE A SEAT
The wooden stool has long been a highly practical member of the Western furniture family, from the wobbly three-legged milkmaid prop to the damask-covered ottoman. But at L'Arte du Cote d'Ivoire, at Ray Hughes Gallery in Surry Hills, the African mind has given stools heads and tails as well as legs and seats. There are turtles, dogs and elegant creatures with a long neck allowing them to be shouldered.
Many have a mellow patina - polished not so much by African bottoms as by art dealers in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, where waxing and buffing is as common as it is in Queen Street, Woollahra. As with Queen Street, beware of "sticker shock". Prices start about $900 for these lively pieces of African art.
© 1993 Sydney Morning Herald