Portrait of duchess brings $1950

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33803, 27 March 1975, Page 18

Portrait of duchess brings $1950

A portrait of a Duchess of Kent attracted the highest bid of $1950 at an auction of antiques, furniture, silver, paintings, and jewellery held at Kaiapoi yesterday.

The portrait, painted in oils by John Opie about 1800, attracted keen bidding to reach this price. A 1927 framed presentation photograph of the Duke and Duchess of York, autographed, fetched $2O, and a gold-and-enamel brooch presented by Edward VII to a member of his household was passed in at $6.

More than 400 lots offered by R. G. Bell and Company ranged in price from a tiny Victorian silver vinaigrette, “that removed the smells of sewers,” at $l6O to a 1750 elm long-bench at $2OO and an Boz Georgian silver

chalice, made in London in 1808, at $240. Paintings attracted keen interest. From a large entry, some unsigned but all certified as by Margaret Stoddart. nine lots brought a total of $2785. frequently more than one being taken by a bidder.

A water-colour. "Storm in the Alps,” by W. H. Raworth, dated 1896, brought the highest figure in this section of $9OO. A water-colour of quite different style, by J. S. Yamamoto. fetched $110; a pair of eighteenth-century engrav ings by W. Ward, $lBO, and an oil on a wood panel by John Dennis, probably of the i same period, $2OO.