Auctioneers

Collectors of works by the Rhead family of potters will no doubt have September 5 already marked in their diaries.

‘L’Abbé Quille’ (shown below), against whose leg a dog is seen relieving itself in the illustration, is one of 84 hand-coloured plates – 12 each of seven subjects – that make up a French magic trick book of c.1799 sold for £2900 by Dominic Winter (19.5% buyer’s premium) in a June 19-20 sale.

Large numbers of lots identified only as folders, boxes and albums full of prints, watercolours, maps and so on offered in a Brightwells (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale of July 5 included one disarmingly catalogued, in full, as ‘Sketches, Watercolours, Prints of Naked Ladies, chiefly’. It sold at £500.

Almost 30 years ago, a proof copy of Clare Leighton’s 'The Farmer’s Year of 1933', effectively a cased set of 12 of her wood engravings, all captioned, signed and inscribed in her hand, sold for £2800 at Sotheby’s.

ATG’s weekly selection of items on sale at auctions and dealerships.

Little-known but well-connected artist proves a hit as his widow sells 40 works in Penzance.

Cheffins of Cambridge is offering two drawings by Alberto Giacometti (1901-66) at auction on October 12.

As well as the Richard Platt consignment, David Lay offered more than 100 lots of modern art by a local Cornish family.

Southern softness and northern grit were both on display at Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) of Leyburn on July 15.

Found among the contents of a storage unit, a watercolour of Venice by Edward Lear (1812-88) starred in Brighton General Auctions’ (15% buyer’s premium) sale on July 28.

More than 100 Russian paintings consigned from a single source went under the hammer at Moore Allen & Innocent’s (18% buyer’s premium) July 7 sale in Cirencester.

Condensed into one day instead of the usual two, the Summer Sale at Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) nevertheless provided a bird’s eye view of the middle market which these triannual ‘fine’ auctions at Leyburn traditionally offer.

What better way to test your mettle as a novice auctioneer than to host a live sale with experienced auctioneers playing the part of bidders?

Celebrated work in German issued from a Basel press sells for six figures in Stockholm auction.

A pair of white glazed figures of musicians made by the Lowestoft factory c.1770 sold for £4000 at the July 18 sale at Keys (plus 20% buyer’s premium) of Aylsham.

Three of the poems featured in A Northern Venture…, a slim collection of verses by members of the Leeds University English School Association published by the Swan Press in 1923, added considerable value to this now rare little work.

The Doccia factory is perhaps best known for its hard-paste sculptures – many of them near-direct copies in porcelain of 17th and early 18th century bronzes. The key figure is the talented modeller Gaspero Bruschi, himself a Florentine sculptor.