GSV1356-Provision of Valuation Of Historic Furniture And Decorative Arts Collection - AWARD

To provide two valuations; one for insurance and one of market value for the Historic Furniture and Decorative Arts Collection. The valuers will view 500 objects in situ and value the rest of the collection from images and information which will be provided by the Authority.

The information is needed to be able to provide a valuation for the statutory financial accounts and for insurance purposes.

The definition of Market Value for the purpose of this work is: The price of the item in its current state if sold at auction before deduction of any charges and excluding buyer’s premium. The provenance and history of the items must be taken into account when deciding on the valuation for Market Value and Insurance.

The collection consists of approximately 9,423 items consisting of furniture, clocks and ceramics. Over half of the collection was designed by A.W.N. Pugin for the refurbishment of the palace after the fire of 1834. Another large section of furniture, approximately 2000 items, were designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in the 1950s after the bombing of House of Commons during the Second World War. There are a number of items of national and international significance such as the thrones and the state bed.

There are 234 clocks in the collection which were mostly designed by A.W.N. Pugin but there are a number of other Victorian clocks as well. There are around 100 ceramics, also designed by A.W.N. Pugin, with a very small number of other ceramic items. The rest of the collection consists of furniture such as chairs (5,875), tables (1,675), bookcases and cupboards (360), beds, mirrors and small items such as letter racks and ink stands.

It is intended that the valuer would visually inspect and value 500 preselected items. The valuer will then value the rest of the collection from images and information provided from the collection database.

We require an experienced valuer with extensive knowledge of A.W.N. Pugin and Scott furniture and the value of these items.

The valuer should have experience dealing with large collections and compiling reports on collections of this scale.