At the Thomas Adams & Co salerooms next Tuesday, a 19th-century satinwood semi-elliptical commode is expected to fetch £4,000-£6,000 and a satinwood lady's writing desk of the same period has an estimate of £2,000-£3,000. A Victorian mahogany extending dining table - always popular lots whenever they come up at auction - is estimated to sell for £3,000-£4,000.
A Victorian walnut breakfront four-door side cabinet ought to make £1,200-£1,500 and a 19th-century satinwood two-tier etagere is expected to fetch £800-£1,200. In addition, the sale contains a collection of Victorian ebonised furniture, pedestal desks, sets of Victorian chairs and a number of chests of drawers.
Contents of Brookfield House in Cork to be sold
Woodwards of Cork recently sold Brookfield House on the city's College Road for over £3.5 million and next Wednesday the company is disposing of the property's contents. Tom Woodward promises the occasion will provide "a good selection of Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian furniture and effects".
Among the items he regards as especially noteworthy are a Cork long-case mahogany clock by William Ross, a pair of mahogany Cork 11-bar chairs, a Sheraton inlaid sideboard and a Jacobean oak coffer.
Victoriana includes several mahogany dining tables and display cabinets, sideboards and chiffoniers, a canterbury and a davenport and a set of six balloon-back dining chairs. As well as English and Irish silver and plate, pictures will also be on offer, not least of which is a fine marine painting, Cornish Breakers, by the late 19th-century British artist David James.
Up to £6,000 expected for four-door bookcase
Town & Country will be conducting a sale tomorrow in Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin, where a Victorian mahogany breakfront four-door bookcase is expected to make £4,000-£6,000, a large Victorian gothic four-door bookcase has an estimate of £4,000-£5,000 and a set of 12 Victorian spoon-back dining chairs is likely to sell for £2,800-£3,500.
Christie's to sell travel books with an Irish link
Travel books from the 18th century with an Irish connection come up for sale at Christie's in London next Thursday. The works are a 1777 two-volume Dublin edition of George Forster's Voyage round the World, performed in His Britannic Majesty's Ships The Resolution and Adventure, in the years 1772, 1773, 1774 and 1775 and, as part of the same lot, the two-volume Dublin edition of Captain Cook's Voyage around the South Pole, published in the same year. The books are expected to make £1,720-£2,293.
Forster and his father, Reinhold, a naturalist, travelled with Cook on the explorer's second voyage, for which they received £4,000. However, this sum was inadequate to cover their needs and they produced their own account of the journey to raise funds. Published just a few weeks before Cook's own version appeared, it brought down the wrath of the Admiralty on the Forsters and led to a public dispute. Nor did the books make much money; Reinhold Forster went to jail over his debts and his son left England for good in 1778.
