Early Needlework Leads Fashion, Costume & Textiles Sale

Good early needlework panels led the Fashion, Costume and Textiles Sale at Tennants Auctioneers on 21^st November. Consigned from a private collection, a Late Elizabethan or Early Jacobean Needlework sold for £3,200 (all figures exclude buyer’s premium). Wrought in silks and silvered threads over a cream silk ground, the fine needlework depicted a stylised formal garden viewed from above, with trees, pillars and flowers all bordered with decorative strawberry plants. Selling well, too, was a Circa 1740 Needlework depicting a fashionably dressed lady in a red dress, which sold for £650. A Circa 1650 Needlework Picture depicting Abigail offering food to David from a second vendor sold for £800.

Vintage menswear is generally scarce at auction, but three lots of fine quality mid-20^th century suiting from the collection of the Player Family of Aberdeenshire all sold well above estimate; a lot of Speyside Tweed Ghillie or Estate Suits sold for £1,700, a lot of Gents Three Piece Wool Suits sold for £1,800, and a group of Gent’s Clothing sold for £1,900.  With good provenance, too, was a good Circa 1800 Chintz and Patchwork Quilt embroidered with the maker’s name – Sally Filkes of Warminster, Wiltshire (sold for £1,800). Filkes (née Wilton) was born in 1756 and lived in Warminster her whole life. Born into a wealthy family, in 1787 she married James Filkes, a wool merchant.

Coinciding with the centenary of the 1925 Paris International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, which saw the Art Deco style reach peak fruition, the sale offered an extensive private collection of 1920s and 1930s costume, textiles, accessories and millinery. Having generated much interest, fierce bidding saw prices exceed presale expectations. Highlights of the collection included an Early 20^th Century Blue Silk Velvet Evening Coat made by Steins Gowns and Millinery of New York (sold for £500), an Art Deco Boudoir Doll of Marlene Dietrich (sold for £650), and a set of seven Millinery Felting Tools (sold for £500). Much of the collection was sold in carefully curated lots, such as Circa 1920s Egyptian Revival Costume Accessories including shoes, gloves, a purse (sold for £480) and a group of Circa 1920s and Later Costume Accessories with a red silk velvet cloche hat, red leather shoes, an evening bag and a silk scarf (sold for £500).

A notably strong theme of the sale was world textiles, with colourful embellished costume and decorative hangings selling well throughout, such as a 19^th Century Persian Embroidered Panel (sold for £300), an Early 20^th Century Indian Wool Coat (sold for £650), and an Early 20^th Century Indian Green Wool Robe and Cap (sold for £250). Furnishing textiles of note included a pair of Mario Fortuny Peach and Brown Floral Printed Cotton Curtains, which sold for £450, and amongst the antique costume was a fine Early 19^th Century Cream Silk Dress, which sold for £1,100.

The sale achieved a total hammer price of £74,130 with an 89% sold rate for 321 lots.

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