Auctions

A string of record prices for leading names in the Contemporary art market saw the amount of money raised in the latest New York auction series heading back to boom-time levels.

Setting a record any post-War work of art ever sold at auction, Mark Rothko’s (1903-1970) oil on canvas 'Orange, Red, Yellow' sold for $77.5m (£50m) at Christie’s Contemporary art evening sale on May 8.

On May 19, Channel Island auctioneers Martel Maides are set to offer the first single-owner house sale on Jersey for almost a decade with an on-site 500-lot sale of The Priors in St Saviours.

A studio collection of works by Charles James Adams (1859-1931), best known for his animal pictures, is to be offered at The Cotswold Auctions’ specialist picture sale on May 18 in Cirencester.

New London auction outfit Artem will host their inaugural sale on May 18 at the Royal Institute of Great Britain on Albemarle Street, W1.

Sworders’ Spring Country House sale in Stansted Mountfitchet on April 24 included a remarkable collection of pieces designed by Augustus Pugin for his own Ramsgate home.

An album containing over 200 photographs belonging to Flight Lieutenant Herbert Carmichael “Bird” Irwin (1894-1930), captain of the airship R101, is to be offered for sale at Netherhampton Salerooms in Salisbury, Wiltshire, on May 16.

The latest round of Impressionist and Modern art sales in New York will forever be remembered as ‘The Scream’ series.

This silver inkstand made by William Robb of Ballater, assayed in Edinburgh in 1910, is one of ten items by the silversmith to be included at Batemans sale on May 5 in Stamford, Lincolnshire.

Wind in the Willows characters Mole, Ratty and Toad are to go under the hammer at Michael Bowman of Newton Abbot in Devon on May 5.

Bids in the region of £1000-1500 are expected at Plymouth Auction Rooms on May 9 for this Eureka four-glass electric clock.

At their May 9-10 sale, Stroud Auction Rooms in Gloucestershire will include over 200 lots of weights and scales from a single collection.

IF pearls reached the peak of their popularity in antiquity, when the Roman general Vitellius is said to have financed an entire military campaign by selling just one of his mother’s pearl earrings, then the market in 2012 does not rest too far behind.

A rare Märklin ‘first series’ tinplate toy ’HMS Terrible’ was the jewel in the Ron McCrindell collection sold by Special Auction Services of Greenham, near Newbury, on April 20.

STUDENTS from West Dean College near Chichester will offer their work at auction to raise funds to supplement the college’s bursary and scholarship schemes.

BALDWIN’S are to sell the most complete collection of British gold sovereigns, formed over 34 years, with the first tranche being offered on May 8 in London.

THE first corkscrew model designed by Robert Jones and Son of Cheapside, Birmingham in 1840, distinctive for a narrow barrel and a single spike, can usually be bought for around £1000.

IT was a case of ‘last but not least’ at Bonhams’ latest prints sale in New Bond Street.

A UNIQUE Falklands War medal marking the ‘phenomenally brave’ work of a bomb disposal expert has sold for what is believed to be a record price at auction.

IT was the five o’clock shadow that gave it away. When London dealer Philip Mould spotted this 18th century portrait in a general paintings sale at the New York auctioneers Thomas Cornell Galleries in November last year, he thought it to be of a rather masculine middle-aged lady.