Auctions

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

The series of novelty ‘book’ hip flasks made by James Dixon & Co of Sheffield c.1900-10 are always popular collectables.

Scenes of rural life in the Outback are the most common subject of the prolific and highly inventive Australian painter Kevin ‘Pro’ Hart (1928-2006).

Though around 30% of the 150 lots remained unsold, no fewer than eight of those offered in a held by Christie’s (15/20/14.5% buyer’s premium) in London brought six-figure bids.

'Hortus sanitatis' (Gart der Gesundheit, Augsburg 1485), considered among the most important early works of natural history and one of the first scientific incunabula in a vernacular language, is on offer at Munich saleroom Ketterer Kunst on November 28.

The Cotswold Auction Company (22% buyer’s premium) offered this version of the well-known Pilkington’s Lancastrian St George and the Dragon charger in Cheltenham.

Estimated at £3000-4000, this 9½ x 12in (24 x 30.5cm) albumen print by Julia Margaret Cameron of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is offered in the Books, Maps, Manuscripts & Photography auction on September 15 at Lawrences of Crewkerne.

A recent sale at Mander Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) in Sudbury was topped by this textbook example of late 19th century American furniture: the Wooton secretaire desk.

Catalogued as a ‘very good, complete copy in original condition of the first really modern scientific book published in England’, a 1600 first edition (Peter Short) of De Magnete by William Gilbert is estimated at £10,000-15,000 in Forum Auction’s Fine Books, Manuscripts & Works on Paper sale in London on September 29.

This striking unique bed was designed in 1935 by poet and patron Edward James together with interior decorator Norris Wakefield.

This scarlet and navy woollen cape sold in an Essex auction is sewn with the numerous cloth regimental badges that were given to Esme Kathleen Robinson (d.2017) by the soldiers she treated in Oxfordshire as a member of the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) during the Second World War.

A lot offering Action Man outfits and accessories from the flock hair period c.1970 sold for 100 times the low estimate at a Devon saleroom thanks to a considerable rarity it contained.

A round-up of art and antiques news from the previous seven days, including a copy of The Beano No 1 selling for a five-figure sum at auction.

The Silver, Coins & Medals auction at Fellows in Birmingham on September 13 will include this garniture of three George V silver pedestal bowls with lion and serpent embellishments. estimated at £1500-2500.

Bid to £65,000 in a Sotheby’s (25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) sale that ran online from July 12-19 was the ink drawing by Ernest Shephard shown below.