Paintings fetch five times their estimate
A RANGE of 18th and 19th-century paintings of Neath and Swansea have sold at auction, far exceeding their expected hammer prices.
More than 40 paintings were auctioned at Rogers Jones & Co Auctioneers and Valuers’ Welsh sale and were earmarked to fetch as much as £10,000.
However the paintings sold for £50,000, with one selling for £12,000 when it had been only expected to sell for between £200 and £400.
The landscape paintings relating to the Neath Valley and estuary at Swansea were from a single owner collection from an estate in Neath Port Talbot. The collection brings together some highly-regarded names in topographical painting.
Ben Rogers Jones, of Rogers Jones & Co, said: “The Neath collection went far and above our expectations, realising just under £50,000 for the client. There were several lots which sold well above the estimate, but the shock of the day was for Lot 31, which made £12,000 against an estimate of only £200 to £400.
“This lot was a small high-quality oil painting entitled Mouth of the Neath River from Britton Ferry, 1820 by an English artist called George Orleans De La Motte”.
He added: “The quality of the work was not lost on us – in fact we used the image to promote the sale – however, the price was a big shock.
“We estimated the painting modestly as the artist is relatively unknown, with very few records for his work ever selling at auction, and it was also small in size, only 19 x 28cm.”
Mr Rogers Jones said the auction of this lot was very exciting, with bids starting at £1,000 followed by a threeminute bidding rivalry between an online bidder and one in the room.
He added: “The online bidder, a private collector based locally to the scene of the picture, won out in the end. It was a great battle.”
The works, under the umbrella title of Capturing the Vale of Neath, included those by Thomas Walmsley and his watercolour of Neath bridge in 1790, and James Burrell Smith, who was a renowned watercolour and oils artist and noted for creating engravings for The Illustrated London News, who had his painting of the river dating from 1875 up for auction.
Others included a panoramic and dramatic landscape painting of two figures observing a waterfall by John Brandon Smith, painted in 1892.
Also listed was William Weston Young’s oil painting of Neath Abbey dating from 1820.
On the Swansea side, Bristol-born Edward Francis Drew Pritchard specialised in seaside scenes of Britain and Belgium and exhibited at the Royal Academy. His 1856 oil painting Swansea from the East, at Low Tide was at the auction.