Keen eye for quality: the Phillip Lucas Collection comes to auction

That discerning taste has been evident from his project repairing a silk merchant’s house in Spitalfields, London, which dates from 1725. Lucas furnished it to suggest the flavour of life in the early 18th century, when the area’s larger houses were the homes of prosperous and erudite merchants and master weavers then engaged in the area’s thriving silk industry.

The house had fallen into deep decline in the late 19th century and had stood derelict for much of the 1960s-70s.

Now, Property from the Phillip Lucas Collection is on offer at the Dreweatts auction in Donnington Priory, Newbury, on December 9. Lucas says: “This sale is the harvest of 30 years of collecting. The time has come to take stock, or rather to pass some on. I do it in the hope that other people will take as much pleasure in these beautiful objects as I have.”

Here are five ideas for items to bid for in this sale.

Oyster catch

This fine William & Mary walnut oyster veneered and marquetry side table (pictured top), c.1690, is estimated at £3000-5000. The rectangular sectionally inlaid top is decorated with scrolling foliage, above a similarly decorated frieze drawer, on spirally turned legs, joined by a H-shaped stretcher centred with an oval marquetry terminal, on turned bun feet. It measures 74cm high x 93cm wide x 67cm deep.

You can bid for the William & Mary walnut oyster veneered and marquetry side table, c.1690 via thesaleroom.com.

'Belchier' belter of a mirror

A George I carved giltwood wall mirror, c.1720, in the manner of John Belchier or James Moore, is guided at £2000-3000 at Dreweatts on December 9.

A George I carved giltwood wall mirror, c.1720, measuring 1.8m high x 72cm wide in the manner of John Belchier or James Moore, is guided at £2000-3000. Provenance: Newton Sumaville, Yeovil, Somerset.

Dreweatts states: “Remarkably similar wall mirrors by John Belchier are in the collection at Erddig, Clwyd, North Wales. The renowned Huguenot immigrant cabinet maker supplied furniture and mirrors to John Meller at Erddig during the 1720s (during this period he also received orders for mirrors for St Paul’s Cathedral). Many parallels can be drawn between this mirror and know examples by Belchier.”

View this George I carved giltwood wall mirror, c.1720 on thesaleroom.com.

Nifty nymph

This north Italian patinated bronze model of a seated nymph, 17th century, is estimated at £800-1200 at Dreweatts on December 9.

Estimated at £800-1200, this north Italian patinated bronze model of a seated nymph, 17th century, is catalogued as “after the Antique and in the manner of examples by Giovanni Fonduli da Crema and Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacorsi, called l’Antico".

At 21.5cm high, with the base 14cm wide, this bronze is “an interpretation of a known and much admired Roman type, such as the marble group currently in the Uffizi, formerly the Caffarelli Collection and known to have been excavated during the late 15th or 16th century, and the nymph at the Museo Archeologico in Naples (Pompeiian Collection)”.

The seated nymph reaching for her outstretched foot inspired several Italian sculptors revisiting the Antique, as early as the latter part of the 15th century. The best-known example is the graceful seated nymph by Antico, who was primarily active in the north Italian court of Mantua, under the patronage of Isabella d’Este.

Check thesaleroom.com to see the north Italian patinated bronze model of a seated nymph.

Take the chair

Estimated at £800-1200 at Dreweatts on December 9 is this ash and elm ‘comb’ back Windsor chair, second half 18th century, of West Country type, possibly Cornish.

Sitting comfortably on an estimate of £800-1200, this ash and elm ‘comb’ back Windsor chair, second half 18th century, is of West Country type, possibly Cornish, and measures 1.14m high x 61cm wide x 45cm deep.

See the ash and elm ‘comb’ back Windsor chair on thesaleroom.com.

Gain a Gibbons

Portrait of William Gibbons Esq of Ettingshall, Staffordshire, estimate £400-600 at Dreweatts on December 9.

This English School (17th century) portrait depicts William Gibbons Esq of Ettingshall, Staffordshire. Gibbons, also known as Homer, was born in 1631 in Ettingshall, the son of Thomas Gibbons and Ann Pershouse. William married Ann (Homer) Gibbons in 1766 and together they had one son, William Gibbons. William Gibbons Esq died in 1683.

The oil on canvas, 76.5 x 64cm, was bought at Essex auction house Boningtons in the Country House Sale to include the Principal Contents from Claverhambury Manor, June 2017. At Dreweatts the estimate is £400-600.

To bid for the English School (17th century) portrait of William Gibbons try thesaleroom.com.