Auctions

When Sotheby’s sold Joan Stephens’ collection of samplers and needlework in New York in 1997, the second most expensive lot, at $90,000, was an English needlework picture initialled EP, and dated 1746.

A new world auction record for Sir Joshua Reynolds was achieved at Sotheby’s on November 29 when the oil on canvas Portrait of Omai sold for £9,400,500 (plus 20/15/10 per cent buyer’s premium).

This codified sequence of columns, dots and captions is what the superstitious folk of 16th century Italy consulted with more zealotry than a tabloid-reading lottery pundit in search of Mystic Meg.

Basic buyer’s premium almost doubles: On the rainswept evening of November 29 in Paris, as the tricolor fluttered proudly over the Elysée Palace and Christmas lights twinkled on the Champs-Elysées, history was made as Sotheby’s became the first foreign auctioneers ever to sell in France – exploding a monopoly dating back to 1556.

BIDDING was rather more subdued than usual at this recent Sussex sale at Strides on 6 November, but as ever, the manuscript section contained much that was of interest and, at a comfortable, safe distance, even rather amusing.

The secret memorandum that Nelson sent to all of his captains on the eve of the Battle of Trafalgar, outlining his plan to divide the fleet into three squadrons and thus be able to direct at least 24 ships against any part of the enemy’s line, has become one of the more celebrated documents in the history of naval warfare.

Chinese sales at Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) can always be relied on to produce some good prices during Asia week. While the morning works of art session in their Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art sale, November 8, was quiet, business picked up in the afternoon for the ceramics section.

As fresh, quality private consignments become ever scarcer, the competition for such works must make it difficult for auctioneers nationwide to put sales together. Although Bonhams’ (15/10 buyer’s premium) 400-lot Fine Asian Art sale on November 12 had fewer top quality works to tempt buyers than at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, the modestly estimated and fresh-to-the-market tea dust-glazed moonflask, Qianlong seal mark and period, saw buyers jostling for ownership.

One of the advantages of being an auction house with offices and salerooms spread around the country is that items with regional associations can be sold in the areas with the relevant local interest. This is precisely what happened on November 8 when the signed Louise Rayner (1832-1924) watercolour that had originally been consigned to Phillips Bath came up for sale 120 miles and one corporate take-over away at Bonhams Chester (15/10% buyer’s premium).

This 17th century wrought iron Armada chest had stood unopened in the attic of an English country house for 180 years until it was finally unsealed earlier this year and found to contain a mass of papers relating to Dr William Harvey and his brother Eliab which had been deposited there by his descendants in 1821.

Nothing is more certain to draw buyers in their droves than modestly estimated works from private collections. A single textile entry and two conservatively estimated porcelain collections did just that at Sotheby’s Olympia (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) inaugural Chinese Works of Art on November 16.

AUCTIONEERS Sotheby’s (20/15/10% buyer’s premium) combined with New York dealers Stacks to auction the Dallas Bank collection of United States coins on October 29-30.

Manchester City Art Gallery, the underbidder at auction for the lantern which was the original model for Holman Hunt’s The Light of the World, have secured the piece after all. The gallery underbid the lantern, pictured right, when it was sold to a private collector for £46,000 (plus 15% buyer’s premium) on November 1 at Bonhams Knightsbridge.

‘Little mesters’ were the sub-contractors of the Sheffield cutlery industry – self-employed artisans who hired space in large factories to forge, grind and haft their blades, the factory owner receiving a substantial cut from their sale.

On paper there was not much to separate these three French boxes at Dreweatt Neate’s sale on October 31-November 1. The engine turned gold snuffbox pictured above right was 19th century in date and expected to sell for £500-800.

USA: THREE LOTS representing the principal science, medicine and natural history sections of a Swann sale of October 18 are described below, and illustrated right is one a of small group of patents that featured in the New York sale.

SALES IN ITALY: The first auctions to take place in Italy this autumn in the midst of these days of gloom have been encouraging. In Rome on October 30, Christie’s (22.5/18.5% buyer’s premium) sold the contents of the residences of a collector, Michele Falzone del Barbarò. All 362 lots sold for around £400,000, far exceeding the auctioneers’ expectations.

The Frederick B. Adams Jnr. library of English & American Literature was sold by Sotheby’s on November 6 and 7. The second day was devoted entirely to Adams’ magnificent Thomas Hardy collection, but among the highlights of the general sale was an inscribed presentation copy of the 1923, first English edition of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, illustrated right, that sold at a higher than expected £80,000 to Peter Harrington.

Although there has been talk of the furniture trade holding back at auction, dealers may now be looking to buy stock in the run-up to Christmas and the trade secured almost all of the top furniture entries in Michael J. Bowman’s 489-lot sale on 13 October.

DESMOND Morris is perhaps best known for his books and TV series exploring the behavioural patterns of humans and other animals. Not so well known is his fondness for collecting Ancient Cypriot Art, objects that reach back in time to an age when the society he so avidly studies was in its infancy.