Apothecary bottles create fever
The UK’s largest private collection of antique apothecary bottles, cabinets and other objects has shattered all expectations at auction in the Cotswolds recently.
While bidders may have entered the saleroom at The Cotswold Auction Company in a feverish state, the remedy was soon at hand in the form of a huge collection of pharmaceutical oddities amassed by collector and professor of health economics, Darrin Baines.
Professor Baines’ collection encompassed a vast array of apothecary objects from the early Georgian to late Victorian period, including a complete pharmacist’s shop from circa 1880.
Collecting became a labour of love as he crammed his early Victorian townhouse full to the brim with curiosities, transforming it into an immersive environment for research into the evolution of pharmacy. The auction of the collection was due to a house move, with Professor Baines’ home in Leominster, Herefordshire already sold.
Top seller was a large Victorian mahogany apothecary cabinet – the drawers each displaying a yellow tinted glass pharmaceutical name plaque in Latin – which hammered down at £4,400.
Other highlights included a 19th-century apothecary shop cabinet, sold for a hammer of £1,300, and an early 20th century apothecary shop cabinet, which went for £1,150. An illuminated early-20th century chemist’s shop display sign – reading ‘Insurance Dispensing’ with a red chemist’s bottle to either side – sold for £480.
Elsewhere, a late 19th/early-20th century pharmacy display sign – also illuminated and in the form of a copper mortar and pestle – went for £450. A large pair of late 19th century apothecary shop-display swan neck carboys hammered down at £520, while a group of four 19th-century green-glass ‘shop round’ apothecary bottles made £700.
Auctioneer Niall Fry said: “The atmosphere made for a potent brew, with bidders in the room, online and on the phone competing to ensure the auction would dispense a little luck and a share in Professor Baines’ much sought-after apothecary collection. We are delighted there was so much interest in the sale of this fascinating collection, which Professor Baines had built up over a number of decades.”
A set of three blue 19th-century English pottery apothecary jars, which were not part of Professor Baines’ collection, also sold to an overseas bidder for an impressive hammer of £4,200.