Auctions

Chosen as the front-cover illustration to Paul Atterbury and John Benjamin’s 'The Jewellery and Silver of HG Murphy' (2005), this gemset pendant also provided Woolley & Wallis’ latest Jewellery and Watches sale with its showcase lot.

Two high-quality works on paper made their presence felt at the top end of the Old Masters market during the latest series in London.

An early Anglo-Dutch portrait of the swashbuckling English sea captain Sir Francis Drake topped Bonhams’ Old Master paintings sale on July 4 in New Bond Street. It sold for £290,000, just below its juicy £300,000-500,000 guide.

The so-called auricular style – all organic fluid lines and asymmetrical shapes populated by marine invertebrates and reptiles – can first be found in the 1598 ornament book of Northern Mannerism, Architectura…, by Wendel Dietterlin of Stuttgart.

Comprising some 3000 books ranging in date from 1473-1840, one of the finest collections of books on agriculture ever assembled was dispersed by Forum Auctions (30/24/14.4% buyer’s premium inc VAT) in a July 10-11 sale that totalled £1.6m.

While good-quality but familiar Georgian silver such as entrée dishes, tureens and sauceboats estimated in the £6000-12,000 range met stiff resistance at Dorchester auction house Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) on June 28, two top-quality pieces made their money.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from July 25-August 15, 2018.

Pairs of Georgian candlesticks by the best-known London specialist makers such as William Cafe and Ebenezer Coker continue to sell well enough, as long as condition is acceptable.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period July 12-18, 2018. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

This novelty silver scent bottle, below, appealing to two niche sections largely immune to the swings of the larger silver market, was a target for collectors when offered at Chiswick Auctions (25% buyer’s premium).

Magic lanterns, peep shows and various other optical illusory and viewing devices will be on sale at a specialist Cologne auction firm offering photographic, scientific and collectors’ apparatus.

A rare set of four door panel promotional posters for 'Help!', the Beatles’ second film, will form part of a movie poster sale to be held by Heritage Auctions on July 28-29.

Not every Victorian silver tea and coffee service was sold for scrap in the great meltdown of 2011– when at one point the price reached almost £30 per oz.

Swann Galleries is offering its largest-ever selection of posters promoting food and drink in the firm’s August 1 auction of vintage posters, with more than 75 examples available.

These outsize tongs, below, proved the major surprise at Adam’s (20% buyer’s premium) in Dublin on June 17.

As collecting evolves, many pieces of decorative, and historically captivating, Georgian silver are priced very keenly at both auction and retail.

Considering that Norwich was, after London, the largest and wealthiest city in England from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution, its assay office (1562-1705) was comparatively shortlived. As such, secular silver produced in the city rarely appears on the market.

Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) is currently selling across a number of auctions a cache of items from the family of HG Murphy (1884-1939), whose Falcon Studio produced some of the finest English silver of the inter-war era.