Art Market: Waterloo general's desk fetches pounds 1.7m: Regency masterpiece sets new auction record for English furniture

A REGENCY mahogany desk delivered to the 1st Marquess of Anglesey some time after 1809 set a new auction record for English furniture yesterday when Christie's sold it for pounds 1.76m.

Although the 'Anglesey Desk' was estimated to make only pounds 400,000 to pounds 600,000, dealers had been convinced the piece would fetch more than pounds 1m.

The 1st Marquess led the cavalry as second in command to the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo. When the Marquess lost his leg with the observation, 'By God, sir, I've lost my leg', the Duke replied, 'By God, sir, so you have]'

The previous record was held by a pounds 1.1m George III ormolu-mounted dressing and writing commode, sold in 1989.

The Anglesey desk has been acquired by an anonymous buyer, who bid through a member of Christie's staff. The underbidder was Partridge, leading dealers, who bought the piece in 1945. They in turn had sold it on to Sir John Musker of Shadwell Park, Thetford, Norfolk, whose executors instructed Christie's to sell it. Robert Holden, the fine art agent acting on their behalf, said he did not anticipate problems over export: 'We offered it to the three major public collections, by private treaty sale, at a price considerably lower than was achieved today.'

Phillips was yesterday offering 19 RAF aircraft and a hovercraft, deemed surplus to requirement by the Ministry of Defence. Among them was a Buccaneer MKS2B used in trials to test the radar equipment fitted to Tornados flown in Operation Desert Storm. Although the auction catalogue bore a note about the recently-imposed UN trade embargo preventing them from accepting bids from persons in Iraq, Serbia and Montenegro, Charles Young, of Phillips, said that all their catalogues bore that note. There were plenty of other buyers at yesterday's sale, sending the total to pounds 726,600, well over the estimated pounds 440,000.

The last Buccaneer strike aircraft to be made was sold for pounds 19,408, almost double its estimate. It was bought by Don Wood, a private collector from Andover, Hampshire, who runs an air display team called Source Classic Jet Flight.

Sotheby's said yesterday that the Princess von Thurn und Taxis has instructed them to sell a large number of princely contents from Schloss St Emmeram, the former monastery in Regensburg, Bavaria, the ancestral home of the princes von Thurn und Taxis, one of Europe's oldest and wealthiest families.

More than 3,500 items, including furniture, silver and more than 75,000 bottles of wine, will be sold over nine days in October: they include treasures from 25 castles that have passed through the family over the past seven decades.

The sale is estimated to raise pounds 5.6m. In November 1992, Sotheby's sold other items from the Thurn und Taxis collection for pounds 9m, to help pay duties following the death in December 1990 of Prince Johannes von Thurn und Taxis.

(Photographs omitted)