Woolley & Wallis


51-61 Castle Street, Wiltshire, Salisbury, England SP1 3SU
+44 0-172-242-4500

About Auction House

As the leading regional auctioneer in the U.K. Woolley and Wallis, who were founded in 1884, hold around thirty specialist sales a year spread between nine departments headed up by leading experts in their field. The saleroom prides itself on combining a high level of expertise and professionalism, with the friendly attitude and personal service that clients have come to expect from this long-standing firm.

Auction Previews & News

2 Results
  • Rothschilds portrait of young Elizabethan adventurer falsely accused of being part of the Gunpowder Plot comes to aucti
    Auction Industry
    Rothschilds’ portrait of young Elizabethan adventurer falsely accused of being part of the Gunpowder Plot comes to aucti

    Portrait of Thomas Arundell, 1st Baron Arundell of Wardour, (1560-1639) consigned from Exbury House with an estimate of £10,000-15,000. Painted by George Gower (c.1540-96), the 23¾ x 20in oil on panel is inscribed for 1580, when the sitter would have been aged 20. SALISBURY.- He was created a count by the Holy Roman Emperor for heroics against the Turks, thrown in prison by Elizabeth I, disinherited by his jealous father and unfairly accused by Guy Fawkes of being part of the Gunpowder Plot. Now the striking portrait of the young Elizabethan adventurer Thomas Arundell (1560-1839) comes to auction in the Old Masters, British & European Paintings sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on September 8. One of 18 paintings consigned to the sale by the Rothschild family, this marks the culmination of the dispersal of part of the collection from Exbury House at a series of auctions in Salisbury over recent months that has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds. Pictured at the age of 20 in 1580, Arundell was the eldest son of Sir Matthew Arundell of Wardour Castle in Wiltshire and was first imprisoned at the time that this portrait was painted for his fervent Catholicism. Having secured financial backing from his father and the recommendation of Queen Elizabeth I, in 1595 Thomas set off to serve the Holy Roman Emperor in Hungary during The Long War against the Ottoman Empire, storming the breach at Gran and replacing the Turkish standard with the Imperial Eagle. This success led the Emperor, Rudolf II, to make him a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. All went well until Thomas decided to return to England late in 1595, against his father’s wishes, only to be shipwrecked off the coast of Suffolk and losing all his possessions. His fortunes fell further when he outraged both the Queen and his father by failing to renounce his foreign title, a title that gave him superior rank to his father who disinherited him as a result. The Queen jailed him in the Fleet prison where he remained until 1597 when he was released but barred from court.…

    Art Daily
  • After Jean-Antoine Watteau
    Auction Preview
    Old Masters, British & European Paintings

    Nicolas de Largillière was a French artist known as one of Europe’s premier portrait painters. For his acceptance into the French Academy in 1686, Largillière painted a portrait of Le Brun, the chairman of the academy. He also painted the portraits of the Governor of Arras in 1693 and the royal family of Louis XIV in 1709. Showcased in Woolley & Wallis’ upcoming Old Masters, British & European Paintings auction is Largillière’s oil painting portrait of Monsieur Aubert, General Director of the Bridges and Roads of France. This painting shows the Director in a red overcoat standing next to a table covered in books. Born in the Netherlands in 1603, Aert van der Neer was a Dutch painter known for his nocturnal landscape paintings and his winter scenes. He was considered a master at representing light. Van der Neer used a limited palette of earthy colors when painting to embody the Dutch landscape. Offered in this event is a van der Neer oil painting titled Sunset Over a Riverside Village. The painting shows a moonlit river with buildings and people on either side. To view the whole collection of paintings and register to bid, visit Woolley & Wallis.

    Woolley & Wallis
  • Exbury House Rothschild consignment expected to reach £100,000 zenith at Woolley & Wallis
    Auction Industry
    Exbury House Rothschild consignment expected to reach £100,000 zenith at Woolley & Wallis

    A pair of 19th century continental silver-gilt figures of a rhinoceros and elephant with Eastern riders and attendants. Provenance: Alfred de Rothschild (1842-1918), Halton House, Buckinghamshire and by descent. £10,000-15,000. Image courtesy of Woolley & Wallis. SALISBURY.- The Rothschild consignment from Exbury House reaches its zenith on August 11, when Woolley & Wallis will offer a selection of lots with combined expectations of up to £100,000. The auction comes on top of well over £100,000 worth of items sold in two previous sales, with pictures from the collection valued at tens of thousands of pounds to come in the Old Master Paintings sale on September 8. The entire consignment of pictures, works of art and furniture make up around 85 lots that have come to Woolley & Wallis thanks to a decision to rearrange parts of the interior at Exbury, a seat of the Rothschilds since 1919. Highlights in the Furniture, Works of Art and Clocks auction on August 11 include a pair of Louis XVI ormolu and marble models of the Borghese vase, a celebrated krater sculpted in 1st century BC Athens that now resides in the Louvre. Together the pair is expected to fetch £20,000 to £30,000. A pair of 19th century continental silver-gilt figures of a rhinoceros and elephant with Eastern riders and attendants, carry hopes of £10,000 to £15,000, and a set of eight giltwood and Aubusson tapestry fauteuils in Louis XVI style come with a guide of £8,000 to £12,000. Previously the estate of the historian William Mitford and then Lord Forster, a one-time Governor-General of Australia, by the time Lionel Nathan de Rothschild (1882-1942) acquired Exbury, the 18th century house was all but derelict, and he had it remodelled in the late 1920s. It was the gardens that were Lionel’s true passion, as their unique micro-climate at the south eastern edge of the New Forest in Hampshire rendered them particularly suitable for the planting of rare rhododendrons, camelias and azaleas from Asia. Here he created an inimitable garden, employing 250 men to clear out the woodland so that it could be laid out, while installing an intricate…

    Art Daily