Premiums

When I see interesting objects selling for a premium based upon provenance and ownership I like to post so appraisers can see the market reaction and prices paid.  The Antiques Trade Gazette is reporting on the fall front desk poet WB Yeats used and sold for about $250,000, which was five times the high estimate.

The desk is a Georgian oak fall front with three drawers on bracket feet and with a fitted interior.  Nothing special, and without the Yeats connection would probably sell at a US auction house for under $1,000.

The Antiques Trade Gazette reports

Desk used by WB Yeats sells at five times top estimate at Sotheby’s sale but letters to lover fail to sell

The desk used by poet WB Yeats has sold for £150,000 (£187,000 inc premium) this morning, five times its top estimate of £30,000.

Selling for £150,000 at Sotheby’s, the desk used by poet WB Yeats fetched five times its top estimate.

However, a group of more than 130 letters from WB Yeats to his first lover, then life-long friend and author Olivia Shakespear, the sale’s top lot at an estimated of between £250,000-350,000, failed to sell.

Sotheby’s had billed this correspondence, covering many decades, in which Yeats writes at length about his beliefs, passions and poetic development, as “of the highest importance to literary history and is an exceptional rarity on the open market”.

Leading figures in Irish arts had protested earlier this week at the sale of what is considered a collection of huge importance to Ireland’s cultural heritage, and the letters were central to this protest.

The Irish Times this morning (Wednesday, September 27) reported that Ireland's government had agreed to provide funds to the National Museum of Ireland and the National Library of Ireland to buy certain lots.

The bureau desk was used regularly by Yeats for his correspondence in his later years, including some of the letters which failed to sell at Sotheby's this morning.

Another top lot, an oil on canvas self portrait of Yeats’ artist father, John Butler Yeats (1839-1922), estimated at £30,000-50,000, sold for £70,000 (£87,500 inc premium).

Many of the 200-plus lots were selling over estimate, with the sale ongoing as this article was published.

Source: Antiques Trade Gazette