Auctions

UK: IN A richly gilt and inlaid green morocco binding by Bayntun Rivière, a copy of the 1894 Kelmscott edition of Swinburne’s Atalanta in Calydon – an ex-Beeleigh Abbey lot with William Foyle’s red morocco bookplate – was sold at £1700 (Shapero).

UK: “I HAVE never understood why stools make so much money,” said one dealer after the seeing this late 19th century Chippendale-style pair, left, go under the hammer at Phillips Knowle sale. “They never seem to be used for anything but piling up newspapers in sitting rooms.”

UK: TWO more selections from the Ronald Segal library which was auctioned off in Sotheby’s English Literature & History sale held on December 19.

UK: POSTCARDS were responsible for the highs and lows of Bonhams' 512 lots of collectors’ items at Honiton. Two multiple postcard lots provided the highlights while the section also accounted for half of the 50 or so unsold entries.

UK: ARPAD PLESCH, born in 1890 in Budapest, was a member of an old Hungarian family who counted many doctors among their ranks. Arpad Plesch too became a doctor, though of law not medicine, but family traditions and his national heritage undoubtedly influenced him in the accomplishment for which he is best remembered in botanical and bibliographical circles – the assembly of a magnificent botanical library, the Stiftung fur Botanik of Vaduz in Liechtenstein.

UK: THIS 1564 Venetian edition of Dante’s Divina Commedia was the first to incorporate the commentaries of both Landino and Vellutello, which, printed in roman type, surround the italic setting of Dante’s text.

UK: THREE more selections from the Ronald Segal library which was auctioned off in Sotheby’s English Literature & History sale held on December 19.

UK: NEW and old technology were both part of a successful Saturday event for the Surrey auctioneers.

Ilkley rooms start the new year at the double UK: AGAINST a widely reported background of a slow start to the year, these West Yorkshire auctioneers got off to such a busy start that the first of their six annual one-day sales spilled over into a two-day event.

UK: BEARING 12 battle honours to unhappy, if topical, Afghanistan, this piece of splendidly confident Victorian headwear, led the way among the 570 lots of militaria on offer at Lewes based arms and armour specialists Wallis & Wallis (15 per cent buyer’s premium) on February 13.

UK: THREE more selections from the Ronald Segal library which was auctioned off in Sotheby’s English Literature & History sale held on December 19.

UK: COINCIDING with the recent recovery of Donald Campbell’s boat from Coniston Water, photographs and ephemera relating to Campbell’s famous father Sir Malcolm attracted extra interest at this Devon sale.

UK: THREE more selections from the Ronald Segal library which was auctioned off in Sotheby’s English Literature & History sale held on December 19.

UK: THE best-seller of Phillips’ 19th century sale came from the selection of sculpture in the shape of this 20in (52cm) high bronze of a crouching nude by the French sculptor Aimé Jules Dalou. Dalou, a fierce Republican, who spent a period of exile in England in the 1870s, is as well known for his terracottas as for his bronzes, both executed in highly naturalistic style.

UK: A POTENT combination of nostalgia and rarity lay behind the £12,000 paid for the poster pictured here in Christie’s South Kensington’s (17.5/10 per cent buyer’s premium) annual ski poster sale on February 22.

UK: A TYPICAL mammoth offering of 1463 lots at the Norfolk rooms’ collectors’ sale included something for just about anyone buying on a modest budget – and, as usual, a few unexpected bidding battles.

UK: DOROTHY L. SAYERS, with the able assistance of Lord Peter Wimsey, established herself as one of the foremost figures in what is now termed the ‘Golden Age’ of detective stories, but she was also a remarkably versatile and wide-ranging playwright, a Christian thinker, an essayist and translator, and an accomplished scholar in the field of European medieval literature.

UK: THE Staffordshire auctioneers are the latest to introduce a Decorative Arts section to their sales to catch the current market trend and, although in this case, these largely comprised the sort of 20th century ceramics seen in most rooms, giving them their own section appeared to pay off.

UK: DETECTIVE fiction is the theme of the first of my much-delayed reports on the English Literature & History sale held by Sotheby’s on December 19 – though there have been several cross-references to items from this sale in earlier issues – and it takes the form of a largely pictorial selection of books from the relevant section of the Ronald Segal library.

Two weeks ago (Issue No. 1478) we reported the sale of Sigmar Polke’s re-discovered 1963-64 Untitled Doppel portrat, above left, at a record £1.05m at Sotheby’s February 7 Contemporary Art Sale in London to the German collector Friedrich ‘Mick’ Flick.