News

Dan Dare, pilot of the Future, makes his first appearance in the 1950 first issue of Eagle comic, alongside which is a 1953 Dan Dare Book of Jet Planes, with 3-D viewer. These were sold by Comic Book Postal Auctions, London, on June 12 for £248 & £130, respectively (+ 10 per cent buyer's premium).

US: THIS 10in (25.5cm) high painted wood figure of an Egyptian offering bearer was described as Middle Kingdom, Dynasty XII in an antiquities sale held by Sloans in their Washington DC rooms on May 9.

UK: A DOUBLE catalogue of prints, and maps saw many failures – nearly half of the 224 lots that made up the May sale of Old Master, sporting and decorative prints, plus photographs and drawings – but a selection from what might be termed the “better half” appears below.

FRANCE: CAVALIER arabe traversant un gue, by Eugene Delacroix, sold for F16.5m (£1.54m) plus 10 per cent buyer’s premium at Gros and Delettrez in collaboration with eauctionroom in Paris on June 18.

UK: FOLLOWING on from the success of the International section of the Seeger Collection in New York last month, high quality and low estimates once again proved a winning combination for Sotheby’s (20/15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) when on June 14 they offered works by British artists collected by Stanley Seeger over the last 20 or so years.

The Lie Became Great: The Forgery of Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, by Oscar White Muscarella, published by Styx Publications, Postbus 2659, 9704 CR Groningen, The Netherlands. ISBN 9056930419 NG250. (approx £75)

THE British Antiques and Collectables Awards were presented at a packed ceremony at the Dorchester Hotel in London’s Park Lane on June 19.