AT the beginning of this week, I had a nostalgic time working my way through a pile of new auction catalogues—actual, physical catalogues. That used to be the way all of my weeks began, as it helped me to plan forthcoming visits and viewings. There are significant advantages to online catalogues when they are intelligently laid out, with illustrations from different angles and showing the backs of pictures, especially when there is a good quality zoom facility. The innovation of showing a person standing next to a hanging picture to demonstrate its ‘liveability’ is an excellent adjunct to sometimes easily overlooked printed measurements.
However, even if you have mastered the skills needed to juggle split screens, it is much easier to compare lots in different sales when one has the printed catalogues side by side—not to mention that a good catalogue in the hand is a pleasure in itself. Naturally, too, it may be easier to look up things from past sales when one has the catalogues on one’s shelf than it is to struggle through online archives.
As far as the international auction houses are concerned, however, catalogues are almost extinct, except for limited-run vanity editions for owners and favoured clients in an ever-more limited range of categories. For the time being, middle-sized businesses around this country are still publishing them—thus my recent postbag—and this may be connected to the fact that they continue to offer a wider range of specialities and have taken on specialists discarded by the internationals. As long as it lasts, I shall be happy to use both formats. Here, then, are a number of items drawn from recent catalogues of Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury, Wiltshire; Reeman Dansie of Colchester, Essex; and Dreweatts of Newbury, Berkshire.
Denne historien er fra June 05, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra June 05, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds