Victoriana at new Sotheby’s

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32777, 30 November 1971, Page 12

Victoriana at new Sotheby’s

An all-Victorian salesroom has been opened by the London art auctioneers, Sotheby’s, in a huge, colonnaded building in Motcomb Street, Knightsbridge, reports an N.Z.P.A. staff correspondent in London.

Opened last month, Sotheby’s Belgravia, as it is known, specialises in nine-teenth-century works of art, and runs the gamut of English paintings, drawings, prints, ceramics and glass, English and foreign silver, furniture, textiles, and carpets, and the decorative arts from the Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco movements. Several New Zealand prints and drawings will be sold in a topographical art auction on December 7. These include four works by John Gully, paintings by Goldie and Lawrence W. Wilson, nine lithographs after P- J- Hogan, and three coloured aquatints after Heaphy. Formerly a furniture repository, the gallery was built in Regency time. It has been magnificently restored by Sotheby’s to include a crimson - walled viewing room, a mammoth auction room, and administrative offices.

Sotheby’s Belgravia has held half a dozen sales. It kicked off with a spectacular sale of paintings, and recently was the scene of an outstanding Art Nouveau sale totalling £42,000. The items included a gilt bronze bust by Alphonse Mucha which fetched £lOOO, and a Tiffany

wisteria lamp which made £6500.

The success of these Victorian sales reflects the increasing interest being taken in nineteenth-century art works.

The spread of wealth resulting from the industrial’ revolution was spent largely on ornamentation of the home. The many international exhibitions from 1851 onwards provided a platform for the manufacturers of glass, china, and furniture and medals, awarded to the best of each section acted as a guide to the buying public and as a reminder to the factory owner of the standards he must maintain.