Sotheby's

The American West was the theme of a 43-lot, single-owner collection offered as part of the January 17 sale held by Sotheby’s New York.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Paintings by lesser-known Pre-Raphaelites took the honours at the latest Victorian art sales held at Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9%) and Christie’s (25/20/12.5%).

An auction series devoted to Old Master paintings, drawings and works of art has long been a feature of the first month of the year in New York for Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

Carroll rubbed shoulders with Wilde, Rackham, Tolkien and many other children’s works in recent auctions.

Sold as part of a Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium) sale to benefit the charity House of Illustration, and in partnership with both the saleroom and Winsor & Newton, was a group of 33 lots gathered together under the heading First Editions Re-Covered.

Sotheby’s sale of 80 pieces of memorabilia relating to Lord Horatio Nelson featured a return to the saleroom of many lots acquired by the ‘Princely’ vendor in 2005.

A collection of remarkable Nelson memorabilia from the Battle of Trafalgar on offer at Sotheby’s includes a large fragment of the Union Jack believed to have flown from HMS Victory at Trafalgar.

Presentation copies of The Bostonians and a volume containing the first bookform appearance of The Turn of the Screw were among the highlights of a large Henry James collection offered in almost 50 lots as part of a Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium) sale.

Possibly the first autograph manuscript of a complete work by Bela Bartok ever seen at auction, a working manuscript for the complete score of the original version of his Second Rhapsody for Violin and Piano (BB96) was bid to £250,000 in a music sale held by Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium).

Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and the Holy Places…, an elephant folio work of 1865 that sold for a treble-estimate £45,000 at Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium) on November 14, was a rare and complete proof copy of a monumental book of Palestinian views recognised as one of the scarcer colour-plate books on the Middle East.

The traditional Christmas Old Master series in London provided the first test of the market since the spectacular sale of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi in New York three weeks before.