Tim Harding Collection of Motoring Photographs Part 2

Toovey’s are delighted to announce the second Sale of The Tim Harding Collection of Motoring Photographs. The collection was amassed over a lifetime of collecting by Tim Harding, a motoring historian who had an encyclopaedic knowledge of early vehicle marques.

Tim Harding died in 2018 and part of the collection was sold in October 2021. Such was the size of the collection that it had to be split across two auctions.

The collection comprises photographs in all formats from full plate to ‘box brownie’.  The images, well over 20,000 in number, cover the period from the very earliest days of motoring to the early post war era. Most are loose but some are framed and mounted, and there are also ‘family albums’ compiled in period.

Whilst mainly focused on cars, the collection also covers commercial vehicles, cyclecars, motorcycles, racing cars, motorsport generally, trials, rallies and racing including Brooklands. Some lots will cover period garages and workshops, motor accidents, as well as postcards of motoring interest.

The auction will be held on Wednesday 15th November 2023 at 12 noon.
Viewing for the sale will be held on:
Mon, 13th November 2023: 10:00 to 16:00
Tue, 14th November 2023: 10:00 to 16:00
Wed, 15th November 2023: 09:00 to 13:00

Bidding is available at our rooms and live via the third party website the-saleroom.com, commission bidding is also available.

The online catalogue will be available on our website from 4th November 2023.

The Donald Church and Michael Godfrey Collections

These two beautiful collections represent the best of English country house taste and I am delighted that they are the subject of a series of specialist sales at Toovey’s.

The collections are the property of the artist and interior designer Donald Church and the connoisseur Michael Godfrey. Donald and Michael’s great friendship was born out of a shared joy in collecting and National Trust trips.

Donald Church, a graduate of Medway College of Art and Maidstone College of Art, had a remarkable career working with many of the leading interior decorators of the post-war period, including the hugely influential John Fowler of Colefax and Fowler. Although incredibly talented, John Fowler had a reputation for not always being easy to work with. Donald left his position as John’s assistant but remained a life-long friend. He continued to work for John as a consultant over many years, providing watercolour designs and drawings, including studies for John’s interior designs for several National Trust properties. Donald also worked with other leading interior decorators, including David Hicks, Mary Fox Linton and another Colefax and Fowler luminary, Imogen Taylor.

Donald maintained his friendship with John Fowler and a number of pieces from John’s home, The Hunting Lodge in Odiham, form part of Donald’s collection. These include several pieces of furniture and decorative items. There is a photograph showing John Fowler in the Garden Room at The Hunting Lodge, sitting in a Louis XVI style chair which is entered in the auction. Donald Church’s unerring eye for taste, design and quality informed the interiors of his home and his collection.

Michael Godfrey’s collection, too, is informed by exceptional taste and includes fine Georgian furniture and works of art, 18th-century Worcester porcelain, paintings and prints. Michael famously spent his lunchtimes searching out pieces for his collection around St James’s, London, while working as a senior accountant for the Commonwealth Secretariat in Pall Mall.

Their collections will be sold together in a series of specialist auctions throughout March, April and May 2023.

Search “Donald Church” or “Michael Godfrey” in the current auction to see the collections.

Tim Harding Collection of Motoring Photographs

William Sherbrooke and his Bentleys, photo by Chas Bowers

UPDATE: Click here for information on the second part of this collection

Toovey’s are delighted to announce the Sale of The Tim Harding Collection of Motoring Photographs. It was amassed over a lifetime of collecting by Tim Harding, a motoring historian who had an encyclopaedic knowledge of early vehicle marques.

Tim Harding died in 2018 and part of the collection is now to be dispersed through an auction sale at Toovey’s in Washington. West Sussex, on 27th October 2021. Such is the size of the collection that this will be the first of two sales.

Music Hall Stars Nervo & Knox in an Aston Martin

The collection comprises photographs in all formats from full plate to ‘box brownie’.  The images, well over 20,000 in number, cover the period from the very earliest days of motoring to the early post war era. Most are loose but some are framed and mounted, and there are also ‘family albums’ compiled in period.

Marseal Trade Stand

Whilst mainly focused on cars, the collection also covers commercial vehicles, cyclecars, motorcycles, racing cars, motorsport generally, trials, rallies and racing including Brooklands. Some lots will cover period garages and workshops, motor accidents, as well as postcards of motoring in topographical settings.

In addition there are a number of items of automobilia such as manufacturers’ catalogues from the 20s and 30s, and dealers’ brochures.

The auction will be held on Wednesday 27th October 2021 at 1pm.
Viewing for the sale will be held on:
Mon, 25th October 2021: 10:00 to 16:00
Tue, 26th October 2021: 10:00 to 16:00
Wed, 27th October 2021: 09:00 to 13:00

Bidding is available at our rooms and live via the third party website the-saleroom.com, commission bidding is also available.

The online catalogue will be available on our website from the 16th October 2021.

Toovey’s Celebrate 25th Anniversary

Rupert Toovey

I started Toovey’s Auctioneers twenty-five years ago, with a dedicated team of people who remain passionate about the company and the work we do. We opened on a stormy Valentine’s night in 1995 and were delighted when hundreds of guests braved wind and rain to support us and celebrate this new venture. I set out to create a family firm where people are valued.

The pleasure of accompanying people through their art, collectors’ items and antiques remains as strong as it has always been. We all value objects which allow us to speak of our lives – the prompts to fond memories. Many will also celebrate the beauty of a piece, whilst others collect in the pursuit of knowledge, continually refining and adding to their depth of understanding of a particular field or period, training their eye to the subtle details which set apart exceptional objects. In an age which increasingly confuses information with knowledge and understanding, they are a generous, exciting and refreshing community of people to accompany.

Provenance and the human story behind individual objects or collections add a frisson, which always has an important and positive effect on the prices achieved for them at auction. This has been reflected in Toovey’s sales again and again over the years. The Little Thakeham House Sale, the Bolney Lodge million pound single-owner collection of works of art and furniture, paintings sold for hundreds of thousands and the £520,000 Qianlong period Chinese vase have been just some of the markers which have defined Toovey’s reputation.

Many of the most memorable collections and objects speak of the collectors that form them. Single-owner sales often provide a very personal and particular insight into the lives of the individual collector, such as our 2014 sale of the Library Collection of the late W. Leslie Weller MBE, DL, FSA, which reflected his love of Sussex and his prominent role at Sotheby’s. His friendship, support and advice I always valued highly. In 2015, the collection from Angmering Park House of the 16th Duke of Norfolk’s daughter, the late Baroness Herries of Terregles, reflected the English country house taste which defines us. A number of important single-owner collections auctioned more recently at Toovey’s have included a remarkable group of Chinese porcelain and works of art from London and the collection of the well-known post-war racing driver John Young.

At Toovey’s I and my remarkable team value people before objects and this is given expression not only in the way that we serve people professionally but also in the way that we have always invested our time, money and expertise in the community here in Sussex.

I remain a passionate advocate for building communities through art, heritage and culture which I write about in my weekly column in the West Sussex Gazette and Horsham Gazette. Toovey’s are long-term sponsors of the Shipley Arts Festival, Pallant House Gallery, Sussex Heritage Trust, the wonderful Horsham Museum and Art Gallery, the National Trust at Petworth and many others.

Our company continues to invest in the Sussex community which I love, supporting numerous charities and community groups including Mary How Trust, our local hospices St Barnabas, Chestnut Tree House, St Catherine’s and the Friends of Sussex Hospices, the NSPCC, as well as the WI, U3A and numerous parish churches across the county with talks, professional advice and fund-raising.

We remain a family firm, as we have always been, with family firm values. Our forward looking, dynamic and talented team bridges across the generations and ensures that we remain one of the country’s leading regional auction houses providing a centre of expertise for the valuation and sale of art and antiques with leading specialists and international marketing.

Almost twenty-five years on, I am proud that Toovey’s has fulfilled our hopes and aspirations.

None of this would have been possible, though, without the generous support and encouragement of the collectors, our clients, friends and supporters. On behalf of all of us at Toovey’s, I would like to offer our thanks.

Important London Collection of Asian Art to be Sold in Sussex

Toovey’s Asian Art specialist, Tom Rowsell, with one of a pair of rare Chinese Qianlong period cloisonné enamel elephants from an important London single owner collection of Asian Art

This week I am in the company of Toovey’s Director and Asian Art specialist, Tom Rowsell, who has just finished preparations for the sale of an important London single – owner collection of Asian Art.

I ask Tom how the collection looked in the collector’s London home and he replies “Many of the pieces were beautifully displayed around the house, but it was when I discovered and began to unpack boxes and go through the shelves in an upstairs room that the scale and importance of this collection became apparent. The collection had remained largely untouched for 40 or 50 years. The vast majority of the pieces are from the imperial Kangxi (1654-1722), Yongzheng (1723-1735) and Qianlong (1735-1796) periods of the late 17th and 18th centuries.”

Tom explains how today’s Chinese collectors are following in the tradition of the Qianlong emperor who was the last of the great imperial art collectors and patrons in Chinese history. His genuine passion for art and collecting seems to have been inspired by his grandfather, the Kangxi emperor (1654-1722), and his uncle Yinxi (1711-1758).

The Qianlong emperor was prolific in his collecting applying an exceptional personal connoisseurship. His collection would number more than a million objects.

The Qianlong emperor took a personal interest in porcelain production and was an ardent patron and collector of it. Many of the types of porcelain associated with the Qianlong emperor, however, were seeded under the Emperor Yongzheng’s supervisor of the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen, Tang Ying (1682-1756).

A garniture of five Chinese Yongzheng period (1723-1735) porcelain vases estimated at £15,000-£25,000 from an important London single owner collection of Asian Art

My eye is taken by a rare and beautiful garniture of five Chinese porcelain Yongzheng period vases. Tom comments “Yongzheng porcelain is known for the quality of its glazes, these vases are very fine quality. It’s very unusual to find a set of five still together in such remarkable condition. The finely enamelled decoration with its delicate flowers and landscapes has wonderful fresh colours. Look at the subtle, recessed panels with their moulded borders. Lovely details – these would have probably been made for an important European home.”

Tom continues “Toovey’s are one of a very small number of UK auctioneers with the ability to market online directly to mainland Chinese collectors through our working relationship with Epai Live, China’s largest mainland online auction platform for the marketing of art and antiques. This collection will certainly attract Chinese and overseas buyers as well as UK interest. We will be exhibiting the collection’s highlights at the international Asian Art Fair in London on the 4th November before it returns to Sussex to be sold.”

Today’s Chinese collectors are as passionate in their collecting as their imperial forebears and the market shows no signs of abating.

This important single owner collection will be auctioned at Toovey’s on Thursday 29th November 2018. If you would like advice on pieces in this collection or your Chinese objects Tom Rowsell can be contacted on 01903 891955, and visit www.tooveys.com to view the sale online from the 4th November.