Auctions

Rescued from a skip, a rusting British enamel advertising sign sold for £10,400 (plus 24% buyer’s premium) at auction in Carmarthen.

A Yongzheng (1723-35) mark and period falangcai enamel bowl sold for €3.25m (£2.8m) to lead the recent round of Asian art sales in Paris.

Peninsular War medals featuring 13 or 14 clasps – showing how many actions the recipient fought in – are impressive enough in themselves. But three of them awarded to brothers who served in the same regiment, offered as a single lot at auction, takes demand to a different level.

A superb copy of Henry Hexham’s 'Principles of the Art Militarie' of 1637 was last seen at Sotheby’s in April 1919, as part of the library of the Earl of Chesterfield.

As implied by a plaque to the base titled 'Aeroplane Par Omertz' [sic], this gilt bronze and ivory figure of a boy in an aeroplane was by Georges Omerth (fl.1895-1925).

Bid just short of the high estimate to sell at £56,000 in a Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) sale was a rare complete set in 25 original parts of John Gould’s 'Monograph of the Trochilidae, or Family of Humming Birds' of 1849-61.

Australasia provided the talking points and two main buyers at the recent Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) specialist sale in the Yorkshire Dales.

As in its September auction, a double-page Frank Bellamy artwork featuring ‘Heros the Spartan’ proved a star turn in the latest Comic Book Auctions (19% buyer’s premium) online sale on thesaleroom.com.

German auction houses traditionally hold their autumn sales of Asian art towards the end of the season and this year collectors and dealers were spoilt for choice.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period December 19, 2019-January 1, 2020. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

Varied selection of Down Under images joins British art on offer in Salisbury saleroom.

Two Frances Hodgkins (1869-1947) gouache watercolours painted during her artistic prime were taken to multi-estimate sums at separate UK salerooms in the same week.

Every year Paris plays host to a December Asian art auction series with a raft of sales at the Drouot auction centre and at the independent rooms across the French capital.

Putting classic English furniture firmly back in the forefront of provincial sales in the first part of December was this Chippendale-design Gainsborough library armchair offered in Winchester by Andrew Smith (21% buyer’s premium).

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from January 7-18, 2020.

International interest at the Kingham & Orme (20% buyer’s premium) sale at Evesham on December 6-7 focused on René Lalique. A single-owner collection of the great French designer’s work attracted multiple phone and internet bidders from the US, the Continent and Russia.

Rarely seen in public before, this signed 18in x 2ft (45 x 65cm) gouache is one of the earliest works by the British Modernist painter John Armstrong (1893-1973).

Provincial by geography but far from provincial in outlook, auction houses from Essex to the Yorkshire Dales underlined the international nature of their trade at recent auctions. Cosmopolitanism covered both what was on offer and who was buying.