Quality and provenance were both key to the strong results permeating our inaugural Fine Art & Interiors sale of 2026
Important pictures, sculpture, furniture and rugs saw particular success, with international competition helping to secure prices far exceeding estimates.
Our cover lot, Lucy Madox Brown Rossetti’s Après le Bal, exemplifies this, securing a record price of over three times the low estimate. A selected offering from A Kentish Manor House also captured the minds of our buyers, with several noteworthy results.
We now look forward to our next Fine Art & Interiors sale on 7 July 2026, for which we are currently inviting entries. If you are interested in consigning, please contact us for a free, no-obligation estimate.
James Bruce, Gorringe’s Head of Valuations, London, shares his highlights from our most recent sale (all sold prices in this article include Buyers’ Premium):
Pictures
Pictures provided us with many of our standout lots, led by Lucy Madox Brown Après le Bal (lot 99). Scholarship and provenance helped to amplify the significance of this work, contributing to a record price of £67,500, an exceptional sum for an exceptional picture.
Portraits of Irish sitters from three separate consignments also sold well, with the highlight being Robert Healy’s portrait of Anne, 1st Countess of Clancarty (lot 94). As with the Madox Brown, this picture came fresh to market by family descent, the importance of both artist and sitter working together, as it sold for £20,000.
Naïve school portraits and Grand Tour views both saw competitive bidding. Lot 118, a wonderfully charming English School study of a spaniel, best reflects this. It sold for £10,000, ten times the high estimate.
Lot 187, an enthralling wooded landscape by the Danish realist painter Peder Mørk Mønsted, is also worth noting. This serene oil saw fierce competition, selling for £6,000.
A Kentish Manor House
Provenance often captures the minds of our buyers, this being particularly evident in the thirty-two lots we offered from A Kentish Manor House.
Lot 229 was the standout: a 19th-century fossil marble-topped console table. Believed to be of Scandinavian origin, its journey has taken it from a Kentish manor to a new home, its quality and decorative appeal reflected in the sale price of £5,750.
Two further lots to surpass expectations were lot 221, a pale blue ground Tabriz carpet, and lot 228, a Commonwealth Period oak cabinet. These sold for £1,500 and £2,000 respectively, reflecting the strong prices achieved for rugs and period furnishings throughout the sale.
Fine Furniture
Our two best-selling furniture lots were sourced separately, though, as chance would have it, they were produced in the same part of the world.
Lot 305, a rosewood and ivory dressing table mirror, and lot 326, an ivory-inlaid hardwood circular table, were of Anglo-Indian origin. Selling for £6,875 and £11,250 respectively, they highlight a buoyant market for certain types of colonial furniture. This popularity is also evident in the country in which they were manufactured, the dressing table mirror itself selling to an Indian-based bidder.
Rugs & Textiles
Four noteworthy prices within our rugs and textiles offering came from two consignments.
Lots 260 and 261 — the first a Sarouk, the second a Kashan carpet — took £4,250 and £3,250 respectively. Both are good furnishing pieces of pleasing proportions, with age a key factor in their success.
Lots 264 and 265, both Mortlake tapestries, sold for £3,750 each (£7,500 total). They were dated to the early 18th century and depict the narrative scenes of Hero and Leander and Les Amours de Vénus et Adonis, after Francis Cleyn.
Sculpture and Works of Art
Impressive works of sculpture by key names were very well received, with strong results across mediums.
Lot 18 speaks to our ceramics offering. This sumptuous work depicting a sultana riding an elephant is after an important Meissen model first made by Johann Joachim Kändler and Peter Reinicke in the 18th century. It sold for £5,250.
On the theme of ceramics, it is also worth mentioning lot 23, a fine pair of Chelsea Hans Sloane-type plates. Signed with the somewhat rarer brown anchor mark, these realised £2,750.
Lot 72 speaks to our works in bronze. This dynamic group by the Royal Academician John Skeaping is titled Leaning to the Left. It depicts two racehorses galloping at full speed and was snapped up for a photo-finish price of £4,750.
Rare & Unusual
At Gorringe’s, we love to uncover rare and unusual artefacts — things that can buck the trend and often produce surprise results.
Three highlights that embody this point are lot 33, an Ancient Egyptian mummy cartonnage and wrapping fragments (importantly offered with secure provenance — now key in enabling us to sell such artefacts), which took £2,000; lot 276, a 17th/18th-century Italian Baroque painted reliquary cabinet retaining its original painted depictions of Christ, selling for £3,250; and lot 281, a group of three curious English medieval carved oak ceiling bosses modelled as angels, selling for £7,500.
Clocks & Instruments
Fine clocks and instruments form a staple of this sale.
Lot 236 represents the standout result for timepieces: an imposing late-19th-century German oak bracket clock and stand. It held a sophisticated triple-train fusee-driven movement striking on eight bells and four gongs and sold for £1,375.
Lot 235 represents the best of instruments: a good compound monocular microscope dated to 1869 and signed by the esteemed partnership of Powell and Lealand. It sold for £1,875.
Consignment call for our Fine Art & Interiors sale, 7 July 2026
Following these strong results, we are now inviting entries for our next Fine Art & Interiors sale, with a 9 June consignment deadline.
If you are interested in consigning and would like a free, no-obligation estimate, please contact our specialists today.
