Auctions

Musical manuscripts, letters and photographs of composers offered at Sotheby’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on October 26 comprised the first part only of what was described as “a distinguished private collection” of books that is to be dispersed next year.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi was hammered down at $400m in Christie’s post-war and contemporary art evening sale in New York on November 15.

Soviet art is in the spotlight this month as the London salerooms mark the anniversary year of the 1917 Russian Revolution with a series of trophy consignments to Russian Art Week.

It’s easy to feel disconnected from the hoopla surrounding Christie’s sale last week of a Leonardo da Vinci for an astronomical $400m.

A letter that Edward Lear wrote in 1881 to a friend to whom he intended to dispatch two drawings of Athens was among the more successful lots that Bloomsbury Auctions (24/18/12% buyer’s premium) sold on October 19.

Featuring both real and mythical creatures, including a monstrous selection of denizens of the deep, this map of Iceland with its mountains, fjords, rivers, glaciers and a volcano is one of the more famous found in Ortelius’ Theatrum orbis terrarum.

Anita (1930-2015) and Irvin Garfield Schorsch (1927-2014) were not typical Americana collectors.

It looks very tatty, but the dust jacket shown below is apparently a rare variant featuring a classic 1937 design by Alex Jardine for a 1927 first ‘Coronation’ edition of the Café Royal Cocktail Book.

A calendar of upcoming sales in Canada and the USA...

A round-up of recent auction highlights from Anglo-Saxon treasure to a magnificent man in his flying machine.

Highlighting the next photographs auction at Doyle, New York, on December 14 is an Ansel Adams Museum Set comprising 75 gelatin silver prints of the most famous images, each with a pencil signature, from the legendary photographer.

In May 1789, as the political and financial situation in France grew ever bleaker, Louis XVI was forced to summon the three estates – the clergy, nobility and commoners – who had the power to levy taxes and implement reform.

For many years, marine art sales were used by the big auction houses to tap into the wealth of the world’s yachting and sailing community.

Sun Yat-Sen (1866-1925) was the first president and founder of the Republic of China, and his bust adorns the obverse of a coin which will highlight the next Coins and Currency Auction at Rago, New Jersey, on December 2.

A selection of stand-out lots from auctions in west London, Mayfair and Gloucestershire.

A rather unconventional painting by the Victorian artist Joseph Farquharson (1846-1935) featured in Catherine Southon’s (18% buyer’s premium) sale in Surrey.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period November 9-15, 2017. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

A Beatles 'Love Me Do' signed single will be auctioned by RR Auction, Boston, in the online-only Marvels of Modern Music Sale running from December 7-14.

Just a clutch of canvases by the Cornish artist Marjorie Frances ‘Midge’ Bruford (1902-58) have gone under the auctioneer’s gavel.