An auction in the Cumbrian town of Cockermouth has seen fine art items commanding the highest prices, with a notable sale being a picture that once graced a prominent hotel in the Lake District.
Local auction house Mitchells, which includes fine art and antiques among its specialist areas, managed to achieve top prices for three paintings that formerly belonged to the Langdale Chase Hotel, a grand venue on the banks of Windermere, England’s largest lake.
Most of the antiques went for modest prices in the tens of pounds and a few in the hundreds, with a diamond ring, a clock and a framed photo of Winston Churchill all selling for £4,000 or more. But the star of the show was a 17th century oil painting of a Catholic nobleman from the Order of Santiago, which was sold for £26,000.
The Carlisle-based News and Star reported a spokesman for the auctioneers as saying the prices was reached despite the fact that the location of the picture next to a doorway had led to accidental damage from hotel guests.
“This didn’t deter bidders and the painting was eventually sold internationally to a buyer in Spain,” he noted.
Fine art dealers in the UK might also have been impressed with the performance of other paintings in the sale, with the second best performer being an image of Hayle Harbour in Cornwall, produced in the early 1960s by St Ives-based artist Bryan Pearce.
The other Langdale Chase pictures sold were an 18th century shipwreck picture that sold for £3,600 and a 17th century picture of a lady in a yellow dress by a follower of Peter Lely, which went for £2,400.
Chances to purchase this kind of art do not come around every day. In this case, the sales of the Langdale Chase pictures come as the hotel, which is currently closed, undergoes a major refurbishment project as the owners seek to redesign its interior.
