Auctions

From the height of almost impractical luxury to a simple piece of homespun craftsmanship, the full creative range of sewing accessories was on offer at the summer sale of specialist auction house Bleasdales (20% buyer’s premium).

The interior of this 15in (38cm) mid-19th century Chinese gilt and black lacquer workbox includes two layers of 15 small interlocking boxes. The central cruciform-shaped box has a pin cushion incorporated in the lid.

Better by a distance than nine similar items, a mid-17th century wainscot chair offered by Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) in Crewkerne demonstrated the yawning price gap between the acceptable and the desirable in the early oak market.

Not always predicted but overwhelming when it comes, big-money Russian interest sent a bronze equine group soaring at Dawson’s (23% buyer’s premium) in Maidenhead.

The reason that an otherwise unexceptional 1737 English language edition of Horace’s 'Odes, Satyrs and Epistles' – lacking a portrait and three text pages – sold for the substantial sum of £50,000 in the Bonhams (27.5/25/20/13.9%) sale on June 26 is to be found on the front endpaper notes shown below.

Our weekly selection from salerooms.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Our weekly selection from salerooms.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period ???? -????, 2019. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

Mid-20th century animal study contrasts with traditional ornithological work in same auction.

Our weekly selection from salerooms.

Two rare pre-war Dinky trade boxes which had been in loft storage for two generations appeared for sale in Lincolnshire. Toy specialist M&M Auctions (21.6% buyer’s premium inc VAT) in Spalding offered them on behalf of a family who had owned the toys since new in the mid-1930s.

Drawing keen interest at Hansons (20% buyer’s premium) in Derbyshire last month was a work by Belgian painter Francois Joseph Navez (1787-1869), an artist who rarely appears in the UK salerooms.

Our weekly selection from salerooms.

From a Boston fireman’s helmet to an Islamic 13th century marble panel, the large mixed-discipline summer sale to be held by US auction house Thomaston Place in Maine over three days from August 23-25 ranges widely in terms of date and type.

One of the highest prices for Albert Chevallier Tayler (1862-1925) at a UK auction in the last 10 years was achieved at Roseberys’ (25% buyer’s premium) latest picture sale when a late Victorian ‘period’ scene attracted multiple bidders.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales at £700 or under, including social history scenes.

Two French scenes by much-travelled husband-and-wife artists Ethel Carrick (1872-1952) and Emanuel Phillips Fox (1865-1915) are highlights of Sotheby’s sale of Australian Art to be held in Sydney on August 27.

A group of 481 rare book lots from the personal collection of renowned collector in the New York literary community features in Heritage Auctions’ rare books sale on September 5.