Viennese estate sale set for North Yorkshire

An array of art and antiques from a notable private estate in Vienna went under the hammer in The Austria Sale at Tennants Auctioneers on October 14.

The auctioneers reported that after much national and international interest, with a high proportion of private buyers, the sale achieved a 100% sold rate. The single-owner sale offered over 380 lots of good furnishing pieces, from paintings, fine furniture, silver, and rugs to high-end soft furnishings, contemporary lighting and Baccarat glass, with many of the pieces bearing good provenance.

The top lot of the collection was a fine patinated bronze “Neo-Grec” Jardinière after Ferdinand Levillain (1837-1905), cast in bas-relief with classical figures and sacrificial animals, which sold for a hammer of £9,000. A good offering of finely made furniture was led by a pair of Regency foldover card tables in the manner of George Bullock, which sold for £6,000 against an estimate of £2,000-3,000. A pair of French Louis XV-style vitrines made in the third quarter of the 19th century sold for £5,000, a fine Victorian burr walnut library table, attributed to Holland and Sons sold for £4,000, and a late 19th century Venetian carved giltwood ten-piece drawing room suite sold for £3,000.

Elsewhere in the sale, an impressive Florentine style carved giltwood and composition mirror sold for £3,800, a set of nine gilt metal three-branch wall lights in Louis XV style sold for £3,800, and an Austro-Hungarian silver table service made by J.C. Klinkosh in Vienna in the late 19th century sold for £6,500.

Among the paintings, a Dutch landscape of travelling figures before a bridge with vineyard beyond at sunset by a follower of Nicholaes Pietersz. Berchem (1620-1683) sold for £2,500.