Mouseman sideboard makes £7,600

In Hickory Dickory Dock, clock-scaling mouse was the star of the nursery rhyme. But a mouse scurrying up an oak sideboard was the star of Moore Allen & Innocent's selected antiques sale in Cirencester on Friday, May 27.

When the hammer fell at £7,600 the sideboard, an early example of the work of by Robert Thompson of Kilburn – better known as The Mouseman for his signature trademark of a carved mouse on every piece of furniture he produced – had achieved by far the highest lot price of the day, in a sale where the top 15 lots all broke the £1,000 barrier.

In keeping with the animal theme, a late 17th century tortoiseshell, ivory and parquetry inlaid table top cabinet, of Indo-Portuguese origin, achieved the second highest price, at £3,800, with a George III chiming bracket clock – without a mouse running up it – making £2,800.

Narrowly pipped to fourth place – by a collection Victorian 'Kings' patterned silver cutlery which weighed in at nearly 128 oz and made £2,200 – was the antique with perhaps the most romantic backstory of the sale.

An 18th century chatelaine, which sold for £2,000, came with a handwritten card explaining: "The words written on the ivory tablet in this chatelaine are by Jane Falk whose parents opposed her marriage.

"She is supposed to have written and passed the tablet to her lover (afterwards her husband Captain James George Wordeman) with whom she ran away and married in Falmouth Parish Church 1763 (March 11th). She died in 1775 at Riga Russia."

Elsewhere, gold and silver antiques continued to achieve good prices – buoyed by the value of the raw materials on the commodities markets.

A circa 1900 Austrian cutlery canteen weighing in at 90 oz – originally owned by Karl Grabmayr Von Angerheim, privy councillor to the emperor Franz Josef – sold for £1,800, while three nine-carat gold George V cigarette cases made £1,550, £1,200 and £1,000 respectively.

One of the most unusual antiques was an early 20th century swagger stick, topped with a white metal grotesque mask. At 72cm long, the horn must have come from a mighty bull rhino, and a respectable £1,000 was paid for the lot.

And also within the top 15 were a circa 1890 rosewood cased grand piano by Julius Bluthner of Leipzig, and a late 19th century French violin bearing the label Joseph Chevrier, Louthier Mirecourt, Exposition Universalle Paris 1889, both of which achieved £1,000.

Had they been minded, the successful bidders could have struck up a tune – perhaps a rendition of Hickory Dickory Dock.
 

An oak sideboard by Robert Thompson of Kilburn, better known as The Mouseman	A close-up of the mouse
A late 17th century tortoiseshell table top cabinet	An 18th century gold chatelaine, with a romantic backstory
An early 20th century rhino horn swagger stick