Auctions

With species extermination very much in the news following the death of the world’s last male northern white rhino, there was added poignancy to a cased and stuff bird offered at Summers Place Auctions (25% buyer’s premium).

At some point in its life, an early photographically illustrated work on the art of wood turning offered in a recent Exeter sale had been converted for use as a postcard album, but it still sold for a four-times estimate £4300.

Synonymous with luxury and style, the Normandie epitomised the Art Deco era.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period March 22-28, 2018. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

Harking back to when the Netherlands was a powerful player in the tea trade, a rare, early 18th century silver caddy attracted international interest at Halls (20% buyer’s premium) of Shrewsbury.

Successful lots in a Bonhams New York (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) March 9 auction included, at $85,000 (£61,595), a letter that Einstein wrote to his son, Hans Albert, on the very day in September 1945 that the Second World War officially ended.

Domenico Tintoretto (1560-1635), trained in Venice in the workshop of his renowned father, Jacopo.

When the first wave of Kenner Star Wars action figures began arriving on the market in 1978, the Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker figures came with ‘double telescoping’ light sabres.

Made by William Selwood (1607-53), one of London’s finest clockmakers before the ‘Golden Age’, this 16½in (42cm) mid-17th century brass lantern clock topped Ewbank’s (22.5% buyer’s premium) spring sale in Send.

Only a few examples of the rare four-part British quad poster for the 1965 James Bond movie 'Thunderball' exist in uncut form.

Given current market conditions, watercolours can often be ‘the poor relation’ when it comes to mixed category picture sales. But examples benefitting from fine condition, colouring or execution, or a combination of these key factors, can lead to a very different outcome.

The English-born political theorist Thomas Paine lived through the most turbulent of times.

A painting of Farnham High Street from 1794 by a little-known artist fetched a not-so-little £8500 at Woolley & Wallis.

Marines and seascapes were a strong feature of Woolley & Wallis’ latest picture sale and, while there were plenty of affordable works on offer (see separate story), the sale was led by one of the larger works by a well-recognised name.

Two views on the big questions facing the trade… This week we ask whether promoting the foundation date of an auction house benefits the business' branding.

Three more modestly valued works drawing attention at Woolley & Wallis

Having for decades been like one of those obscure religions in which passionate believers go about their business to the benign bemusement of everyone else, studio pottery is winning converts by the day.

Selling just short of the auction record, this 10in (26cm) tall stoneware pot, below, by John Ward (b.1938) went to an online bidder on thesaleroom.com at £17,500 at Rogers Jones (20% buyer’s premium) in Cardiff.

The 96-lot section of studio pottery offered at Woolley & Wallis’ (25% buyer’s premium) wide-ranging ceramics sale at Salisbury on March 21 included a private collection of the work of David Leach (1911-2005) and Walter Keeler (b.1942).

In a career of remarkable highs and lows, incorporating high political office, financial scandal and near bankruptcy, enormous success as a novelist and imprisonment for perjury during a libel case that he had won years earlier, Jeffrey Archer has himself been the subject of many a caricature and cartoon.