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'Mouseman' Elephant Bookends March Away in Auction...

5th July 2019

An extremely rare pair of 'Mouseman' bookends attracted a huge amount of interest at Lawrences Auctioneers.

They were made by the famous furniture maker Robert Thompson of Kilburn in Yorkshire, whose pieces of furniture and small wooden items are well known for their carved mouse signatures. Consigned for sale by a Somerset vendor, the highly unusual bookends were carved in the form of elephants.

The bookends were probably commissioned by John Weston Adamson in the 1930’s whilst he was living at Oldstead Hall in Yorkshire as he had a keen interest in African wildlife. The lot had passed down through the family to the present descendants who offered them for sale at Lawrences.

Auctioneer Simon Jones said, "They attracted a huge amount of pre-sale interest and nine telephone lines were booked on the day. After a long auction battle they eventually made £12,500. We have sold some wonderful pieces of Mouseman furniture over the years, but these were almost certainly the rarest items we have ever handled. This maker continues to attract a huge amount of interest in auction, with a large number of specialist dealers and collectors battling to secure the pieces."

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5 stars

“Congratulations on what looked like a very successful sale ! You never mentioned that you did the auctioneering as well ... talk about doing the whole job ... see it into the building, find out what it is, decide if it’s for the Fine Art sale or the General Sale, lot it and describe it accordingly, and then sell it ... that really does count as seeing the job through from start to finish! Whilst the job isn’t over yet, it really is a case of so far, so good ... some items have sold for sums that exceeded our expectations, with one item in particular fetching a truly remarkable sum, so we’re very happy indeed... we’ve noted how accurate the guide prices are ... and how gratifying it is when the bidding goes sailing past the guide ! I found the whole week to be both gripping entertainment and pleasingly rewarding financially. Please accept my sincerest congratulations for a job well done, and we’ll look forward to the October and November Sales with bated breath ...”

Andrew P

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