Antiques: Everything from card tables and Dresden bowls to a Morris Minor

Des O'Sullivan previews a busy week of auctions offering interest and value to collectors

A 19th-century inlaid foldover card table at Mullen's of Laurel Park.

Offering everything from a 1963 Morris Minor and a 19th-century decorated hand-painted Sicilian cart to a 19th-century inlaid boulle credenza and an Irish Georgian mahogany serving table, possibly made in Cork, Fonsie Mealy’s Making Room sale in Castlecomer on Wednesday and Thursday (February 4 and 5) has plenty to interest collectors of every hue.

More than 840 lots of antique furniture, paintings, decorative arts and collectibles will come under the hammer. Estimates are reasonable, and all lots are to be sold.

There will be Cork interest in a retro wooden mantel clock presented to solicitor John Rearden in September 1950. A small plaque on the Edwardian mahogany clock records that it was presented by the Cork Employers Federation Ltd, “In token of their appreciation of his 42 years’ service as Secretary”. The lot, complete with a photograph of the presentation, is estimated at €180-€220. An inlaid wall clock by Hilsers of the Grand Parade has an estimate of €120-€180.

Given that it is reckoned that you could travel around central London in a horse-drawn carriage in the old days more quickly than by fast car nowadays, the contrasting options of a 19th-century pony trap (€800-€1,200) and the four-cylinder Morris Minor (€3,000-€4,000) are intriguing. The car was once owned by the Odlum family of Portarlington. The Sicilian cart, with spoked and iron-clad wheels, has an estimate of €400-€600.

An Irish Georgian mahogany serving table, possibly Cork, at Fonsie Mealy.

Tables, chairs, chests, oriental screens, display cabinets, paintings, rugs and a converted 18th-century spinet, an early 20th-century carved wooden hobby horse, a Cork Mansion House service plate, a pair of Dresden bowls and three pieces of Copeland to be sold as one lot, and all sorts of collectables vie for attention in an auction where the offerings are comprehensive.

Ebony string inlay marks an Irish Georgian serving table as a possible Cork piece. The estimate is a mere €400-€500. The catalogue is online, and the sale is on view in Castlecomer on Tuesday (February 3).

A pair of Dresden floral bowls, a Copeland dish and two matching plates at Fonsie Mealy.

The auction by Mullen’s of Laurel Park, Bray, tomorrow (February 1) kicks off a busy week of sales in Ireland. Estimates for furniture are reasonable and there is no shortage of attractive antique pieces like a 19th-century walnut-and-kingwood foldover card table (€400-€600), a continental display cabinet (€500-€700), a Georgian mahogany chest on chest (€500-€800) and a vintage Biedermeier-style kingwood-and-walnut pedestal desk (€400-€600).

The most expensively estimated lot, from a total of 633, is a Georgian mahogany bureau bookcase with an architectural pediment and mirrored doors (€1,500-€2,000).

A 1973 silver tea service at Mullen's of Laurel Park.

There is value in pieces like an early carved oak court cupboard (€300-€400), an embossed leather five-fold screen (€200-€300), a set of ten dining chairs (€500-€800) and a nest of quartetto tables (€300-€400). An Irish four-piece silver tea set, made in Dublin in 1973, is estimated at €800-€1,200).

The auction is on view from 10am to 4pm today and tomorrow. The catalogue is online, and the sale kicks off at 6pm.