Auctions

The first stand-alone British and European sculpture sale to be held by Dreweatts (24% buyer’s premium) was a solid-enough affair to justify department head Cristian Beadman’s belief that there is an exploitable gap in the market.

A consignment of items from the Long Island home of the de Forest family provided many of the best-sellers in a two-day auction held by Nye & Company (25% buyer’s premium) in Bloomfield, New Jersey.

It’s a rare sale these days at which an English furniture standard challenges quality Chinese pieces for price, but the top end of the trade certainly rated a 6ft 3in (1.9m) William and Mary walnut and featherbanded bureau cabinet offered by Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (21% buyer’s premium).

The strong suit in the extensive cricket section of Abacus Auctions’ (18% buyer’s premium) Sporting Memorabilia sale in Melbourne on July 22 proved to be a collection of early 20th century autographed real photo postcards of test cricketers that were offered individually.

Just as fine English mahogany is selling below par, Chinese furniture, particularly in the desirable huanghuali hardwood, is booming.

A 19th century Italian oval micromosaic framed panel will feature in the mammoth August 25-26 sale at Thomaston Place Galleries in Maine.

As both a collecting and a decorating sphere, taxidermy is one of the major growth areas over the past decade.

Potter & Potter, specialist in auctions of magic memorabilia, is holding its summer sale in Chicago on August 25.

Preparatory and other unused drawings relating to Roald Dahl classics come to auction

A two-day sale devoted to works of American and international interest is scheduled for September 14-15 at Pook & Pook in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.

From 1936-45, St Ives artist John Wells (1907-2000) embarked on a series of labour-intensive creations while working as a GP on the Isles of Scilly.

Two of only 11 leaves of the original, working manuscript of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species… known to remain in private hands were sold at auction in London last month.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period August 1-8 2018. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

A sale of books, maps and ephemera at Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium) included more than £17,000 worth of 19th and 20th century watercolours and drawings from the stock of a dealer.

An extensive collection of René Lalique ‘mascots’ amassed by a collector and dealer who wrote a book on the subject is coming up at auction in East Sussex.

Two depictions of the Madonna painted some 400 years apart were among the highlights of a dedicated sale of pictures at Dreweatts (24% buyer’s premium) in Donnington Priory in Berkshire.

Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) of Leyburn claimed a new auction record for Bertram Priestman (1868-1951) when it sold a painting of an extensive river landscape by the local artist.

Cirencester saleroom Moore Allen & Innocent (20% buyer’s premium) enjoyed a taste of India’s fast-growing art market when three pictures by the Indian folk artist Jamini Roy (1887-1972) were scooped up for a total of £24,500.

Sold for £2500 in a Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) sale of July 25 was an enormous archive of work produced in the 1950s and ‘60s by Leslie Starke (1905-74), a cartoonist once very popular in both the UK and US.

One of Ireland’s leading provincial auction houses, Mealy’s Fine Art of Castlecomer, County Kilkenny, has ceased trading after 84 years.