The photograph accompanying this feature shows an item of antique furniture, the precise purpose of which may be difficult to realise, especially as it is unlikely to be used in the same way today. Lot number 226 in a sale at Sheppard's of Durrow, Co Laois next Tuesday afternoon, it is a Georgian mahogany boot rack raised on turned pillar and scroll ends and is expected to fetch £700-£900 at auction.
The first Sheppard event of the autumn/winter season, Tuesday's sale has almost 550 lots, many of them of excellent period furniture which is likely to attract plenty of bidders. Lot 173, for example, is an 18th century mahogany tallboy over five feet high and three feet wide, with two short and six long drawers fitted with scroll brass handles and raised on bracket feet (£3,000-£4,000).
Equally liable to evoke widespread popularity is lot 156, a large Georgian mahogany drop-leaf dining table some four and a half feet wide and more than six feet long, its rectangular reeded-edge top having square drop leaves, the whole on turned champfered legs terminating on brass cup castors (£2,000-£3,000). Lot 220 will also draw interest: a pair of Regency and satinwood inlaid tea tables, again, each has a reeded edge rectangular top and opening to the fore to a polished interior above a limewood string-outlined cartouche-centred frieze. The tables are both raised on a lowered stem and sabre-legged quatre pod terminating on brass-claw feet (£4,000-£6,000 for the pair).
Other tables in this auction include lot 372, an early Victorian burr walnut occasional example (£600-£900), its rectangular serpentine top raised on pierced panelled and scrolled ends joined by spiral turned stretcher rails andlot 471, a Regency mahogany Pembroke table (£1,500-£2,500), therectangular top having standard drop leaves above two real and two dummy frieze drawers raised on a turned stem and sabre-legged quatre pod, terminating in brass feet and castors.
The auction also has some fascinatingly quirky lots, such as 481 and 482, a Han Dynasty terracotta model of a pig and a Tang Dynasty terracotta model of horse and female rider, estimated to sell for £400-£600 and £1,200-£1,400 respectively.
Then there is lot 504, a framed advertisement from the Observer of 18th May 1829 offering a number of slaves for sale (£50-£100) and lot 510, an 18th/19th century Chinese sword with gold inlaid hilt and ivory handle (£350-£550).
The main part of the sale, however, is firmly devoted to classical antique furniture for which there is always a steady demand. The Sheppard auction begins on Tuesday at 2 p.m. The company has not only produced a printed catalogue for the event, but now carries full details of all the lots, together with illustrations of many of them, on its own website: www.sheppards.ie.
