Rufus Bird's Top Picks

No. 1

Lot 179: A pair of benches painted to simulate marble, after a design by Charles Heathcote Tatham, 20th century

"Charles Heathcote Tatham was sent to Rome by his boss, the architect Henry Holland, to draw ancient Roman and Greek fragments. His album of drawings is now in Sir John Soane’s Museum, London and some of the drawings were published in 1799. These were enormously influential for the development of Regency design: these stools are directly inspired by the original marble stools Tatham copied in Rome."

No. 2 

Lot 209: A Flemish historical narrative coronation tapestry, late 17th/early 18th century

"The inspiration for the design of this tapestry was probably Rubens’s 1616 designs for a series of tapestries depicting the life of the Roman consul Decius Mus. Until the eighteenth century tapestry was by far the richest form of decoration of any sort: to own a tapestry, let alone commission a series, was to demonstrate one’s wealth. A great advantage of tapestry as a form of decoration was that they could be rolled up and transported, so that the owner could always be surrounded by familiar (and very expensive) hangings."

No. 3

Lot 201: Sir Thomas Lawrence (British 1769-1830), Portrait of H.R.H. Prince Frederick Augustus, Duke Of York (1763-1827), Oil on canvas

"Sir Thomas Lawrence is probably Britain’s greatest portraitist: rarely has any painter managed to capture a likeness and a person’s character and instil the painting with a joie de vivre. There is a sprezzatura to Lawrence like no other artist. George IV’s younger brother (his closest in age) Frederick, Duke of York, was a rakish spendthrift, and courted all sorts of controversy, not least in the sale of army commissions by his mistress Mary Anne Clarke, a scandal which forced him to resign as Commander-in-Chief of the Army."  

No. 4

Lot 197: Francis Cotes (British 1726-1770), Portrait of Mrs. William Colquhoun of Whetham, Norfolk, Oil on canvas

"Francis Cotes’s portraits are among the most pleasing and delightful of all eighteenth century British artists’ portraits. Cotes worked originally as a pastellist, and the demands of that technique served him well as a painter in oils: the sweetness, correctness and technical accuracy combine to create powerful portraits which retain a delicacy often absent from paintings by Reynolds or Gainsborough, his rival portraitists. In the Society of Artists exhibition in 1764, Cotes’s technique was praised because he ‘generally preserves a correctness in his pictures’, in contrast to other artists."

No. 5

Lot 250: A Regency gilt-bronze four light colza chandelier by James Smethurst, circa 1820-1830

"A burner for a lamp was invented in 1786 by a Swiss named Argand, for which this type of lamp was named. Argand lamps used colza oil (made from rape seed) and produced a light ten times brighter than candle. This new technology was widely used in the early nineteenth century and brought in a new design of hanging-light, often made in gilded or patinated metal (usually brass) fitted with oil reservoirs and pipes which fed the burners. As Britain's wealth increased in the decade after the Napoleonic Wars and rooms of greater size and opulence were built in London and other cities (eg. Northumberland House, Devonshire House, York (now Lancaster) House, Buckingham Palace), so ever more elaborate and larger lighting was required, such as this superb quality hanging light."

No. 6

Lot 70: A pair of directoire mahogany, ormolu mounted and marble topped console tables, circa 1800

"This pair of extremely elegant and refined French tables were made in Paris around 1795, at the height of political tumult, when the very grand style of the Ancien régime was modified into a simpler, and more restrained aesthetic, but which still proudly displayed the traditional skill of French cabinet-makers. Subsequently the tables found their way into the famed collections of Henry Francis Du Pont (1880-1969) at Winterthur, Delaware, who collected in that astonishing episode of American buying which began with Frick, Morgan and Mellon and others, known as the ‘Gilded Age’."

No. 7

Lot 98: A George III mahogany and crossbanded library armchair, circa 1800, by Thomas Chippendale the Younger (1749-1822)

"The name of Thomas Chippendale is one of the few makers known beyond enthusiasts for 18th century furniture. Here is a chair made by his less well known, but highly inventive son, also a cabinet maker. Thomas Chippendale the Younger’s most valuable commission was for Stourhead, and at Luscombe, Devon he worked for Charles Hoare, half-brother of Richard Colt Hoare of Stourhead. The chairs resemble the design of the Stourhead dining chairs which were made in 1802-3 and this chair - one of only three known - was made just a few years later."

No. 8

Lot 121: A set of six George III carved giltwood and upholstered chairs, by Thomas Chippendale, circa 1773

"The ‘Shakespeare’ of English furniture makers - Thomas Chippendale - made this spectacular set of chairs, part of a large commission for Viscount Melbourne, for the saloon of Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire in 1773. Chippendale’s business device, or logo, was a chair, and in all of his many chair designs, never repeated a pattern for any client, thus ensuring uniqueness, inventiveness and originality in each set of chairs.  The neo-classical motifs used here show how Chippendale’s designs were always at the forefront of fashionable taste, and the clever double foot design is unique to the seat furniture made for Brocket Hall."

No. 9

Lot 47: A rosewood side cabinet, circa 1820 and later

"This extraordinary cabinet fuses English and Chinese motifs, and was reputedly made for Carlton Towers, north Yorkshire, the spectacular residence extensively re-built for Henry Charles Howard, 13th Duke of Norfolk, in the 1870s. The cabinet, like the building it supposedly came from, has been made into something magical and wonderful, a symbol of the transformation of Carlton Towers."

Auction Details

Wednesday 31 January, 10.30am GMT
Donnington Priory, Newbury, Berkshire RG14 2JE

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