Ashgrove & Finch
18 Bury Street, St James's, London
Sale 402 · Wednesday 14 October 2026 · 2.00pm
Twenty-six lots catalogued over four weeks and sold in a single afternoon. Sit at the back of the room from wherever you are: the saleroom below is running now, with the same increments, the same clock and the same commission-bid book we use on the rostrum.
Lot 14 · Property from the Estate of Marion Leaf
Denise Fairhurst, 1919–1997
Standing Figure III
Bronze with dark brown patina, 88cm high. Conceived 1961, cast in an edition of six by the Fenwick foundry, Camberwell.
Estimate £30,000–50,000
01 The saleroom, live
Six lots, in order. The clock resets on every bid, the increments follow the published ladder and the rival bidders in the room, on the telephones and online are all working to their own limits. Bid, or leave a commission bid and let the book do it for you.
The sale has not started.
Lot 11
Condition report and additional images on request.
Opening at
£4,800 No bid yetBid ladder
The book bids on your behalf up to your limit, in the correct increments, and stops the moment it is passed.
Bid feed — as called from the rostrum
Results — hammer prices as they fall
| Lot | Description | Buyer | Hammer | With premium |
|---|
Nothing sold yet — the first lot is still on the block.
Bids shown include commission bids left with the book, telephone bids taken by our staff and internet bids relayed from the platform. Increments follow the ladder printed in the catalogue.
03 Lot 14 · Standing Figure III
A bronze is only worth what its history can be proved to be. This is the chain for Lot 14, from the foundry ledger to the consignment note — each step with the document that supports it. Use the arrow keys to walk it.
1961
04 Departments
Every lot is catalogued by the person who will stand behind it on sale day. Write to a department directly — they answer their own post.
Showing all six departments
Paintings, drawings and sculpture from 1900 to 1975 — the St Ives painters, the Euston Road school, the post-war figurative sculptors, and the many good artists sitting just outside them.
From the 1960s to last year. We take a deliberately narrow view: artists with a real exhibition record and a market we can evidence, rather than whatever is loud this month.
Furniture, lighting and metalwork, with a bias toward British and Scandinavian makers of the 1950s and 60s. We sell attributed pieces as attributed and say so in the first line.
Leach-tradition stoneware, the Welsh and Cornish potteries, mid-century Scandinavian glass and the sixty-odd British studio makers whose work is finally being catalogued properly.
Editions from Hayter to the present, with every impression collated against the catalogue raisonné and the margins measured. Condition notes are written, not templated.
Private press, natural history, modern first editions and archives. Our cataloguers collate every book by hand; if a plate is missing, the description says which one.
05 Selling with us
Five steps, roughly eleven weeks, and a settlement thirty-five days after the sale. Commission is 12% of the hammer, plus £30 a lot for photography and insurance. There is no illustration charge and no unsold fee.
Step 01
Four pictures and whatever you know. A specialist — not a form — replies with a saleable or not-saleable answer and an indicative range.
Free · 3 working daysStep 02
We see the object, in Bury Street or at home anywhere in the UK. Written estimate, reserve advice and the sale we would put it in.
Free · in personStep 03
One page, in English: commission, reserve, sale date, insurance from the moment we collect. Nothing is charged if the lot does not sell.
12% + £30 a lotStep 04
Photographed, researched, conditioned and printed. Four days of public viewing, and a condition report to anyone who asks.
Six weeks beforeStep 05
You watch from the room or from the sofa. Funds clear thirty-five days after the sale, with a statement showing every deduction.
Sale day + 3506 Free auction valuation
Every enquiry is read by a specialist in the relevant department. We will tell you if it is not for us — most weeks we turn away more than we take.
Attics, executries, downsizings and the box under the stairs: this is where most of our best lots come from. Send four photographs — the whole object, the back, any signature or mark, and any damage — and a specialist will come back to you within three working days with an honest view.
If it is worth more than £15,000 we will come to you, anywhere in the United Kingdom, at our expense. If it is worth £150, we will say so and point you somewhere better. Neither answer costs you anything.
07 Consignors and buyers
“Three bronzes had stood in my aunt's hallway since 1974 and none of us knew what they were. Clare found the foundry ledger before she gave us a figure, which is the opposite of what I expected.”
Hilary Bewick
Executor, Estate of Marion Leaf · Sale 402, lots 14–16
“I have bought at every London room and this is the only one where the condition report told me about a repair I would otherwise have found myself. It cost them the extra bid. I have bought eleven lots since.”
Gerald Amankwah
Private collector, Manchester · buying since 2011
“We placed a single-owner ceramics collection of 240 lots. They catalogued every piece by hand over five weeks, and 96% of it sold. The settlement arrived on the day they said it would, which in this trade is remarkable.”
Dr Ruth Pengelly
Trustee, the Vaughan Pottery Trust · Sale 396
08 Bidding, answered
If your question is not here, telephone the office on a working morning and a specialist will pick up. We do not use a call centre.
Registration closes at noon on the day of the sale. You will need photographic identification, proof of address dated within three months, and — for a first purchase above £25,000 — a bank reference. New clients are usually cleared within two hours; if you are registering for a specific lot above £100,000 we ask for a deposit of 20% of the low estimate, returned in full if you are unsuccessful.
26% of the hammer on the first £700,000, 20% on the portion between £700,000 and £4,500,000, and 14.5% on anything above that. VAT at 20% is charged on the premium itself, not on the hammer, unless the lot is marked with a dagger in the catalogue. The calculator above works exactly as our invoicing system does — put your figure in and it will show you the tiers.
A royalty payable to a living artist, or to the estate for seventy years after death, on qualifying original works sold for €1,000 or more. It is charged in bands from 4% down to 0.25% and capped at €12,500 on any single lot. Lots that attract it carry a small asterisk in the catalogue. We collect it and pass it on; we take nothing from it.
Yes, three ways. Leave a commission bid — a maximum with our book, which we execute as cheaply as the competition allows, exactly as the panel in the saleroom above does. Book a telephone line, and a member of staff will call you two lots before yours. Or bid live on the internet platform, where the increments are identical and a 3% surcharge applies.
The lot is bought in. The auctioneer will say “passed” and move on; nothing is charged to the consignor and nothing is owed by the room. Reserves are agreed in writing before the sale and may never exceed the low estimate — a rule the house has kept since 1884 and one that a surprising number of rooms do not.
Payment is due within five working days by bank transfer, debit card or, up to £5,000, credit card. Collection from Bury Street is free for fourteen days, after which storage is £6 a lot a day. We will pack and ship anywhere; the shipping desk quotes before you commit and uses three carriers so you are not stuck with one price.
For works over fifty years old and above the relevant value threshold, yes — and we apply for it on your behalf at no charge. Most licences are granted within twenty-eight days. Occasionally a work of national importance is deferred, which we will warn you about before the sale rather than after it, because the catalogue note will already say so.
Sale 402 — Modern British, Design & Studio Ceramics
Viewing is free, open to anyone, and nobody will ask you what you are looking for. Bring the object under your arm if you like — Tuesdays and Thursdays, the front desk will find a specialist.