Auctions

OFFERED by Christie’s New York on June 25 was a magnificent unbound set of the plates that make up Audubon’s great Birds of America (1827-38) that came from the library of the Dukes of Saxe-Meiningen in Thuringia.

SOLD for £25,000 at Sotheby’s on June 25 was a group of letters, documents and sketches by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, or Il Guercino [the ‘Squinter’], his painter nephew, Benedetto Gennari and his patron Claudio Bertazzoli, that relate to the former’s altarpiece for Santa Maria della Pieta dei Teatini in Ferrara – The Purification of the Virgin.

IN a Lawrences of Crewkerne sale of July 6, a 1678 first (in full panelled calf) of Some Proposals for the imploying of the Poor. Especially in and about the City of London. And for the Prevention of Begging, the only known publication of the philanthropist Thomas Firmin, was sold at £1100.

SHIP portraits are, as one might expect, popular with bidders at Eldred’s East Dennis auction galleries on Cape Cod.

SOLD for £3000 to David Stone in an Y Gelli sale of July 23 was a first edition set of Bernard de Montfaucon’s L’Antique Expliquee... of 1719-57, comprising ten vols. (in 15) including supplement.

THE biggest surprise in the July 17 sale held by Skinners of Boston was provided by a pair of Chinese chairs, but the pair of 3 7/8in (10cm) high, Wedgwood & Bentley blue jasper portrait medallions of c.1779 right, depicting William Penn & Benjamin Franklin, also did well.

DEVON, with its old wealth and influx of well-heeled retired couples, can provide a rich hinterland, but summer can still mean a bit of a scramble to find enough quality material to offer at Bearne’s (15/10% buyer's preimum) fine quarterly sales at Exeter.

GOOD standard furniture sold well enough at Mitchell's (15% buyer's premium) July 15-16 sale and included a locally made Jacobean piece.

RIGHT: this suite of Victorian silver gentleman’s dressing table bottles is among 200 lots donated from Dorset homes that will be sold for charity at auction on September 18.

EXCEPTIONAL golfing collectables can still command exceptional prices.

A QUALITY furniture grouping and a small, but strong, Oriental section contributed to the upbeat performance of Halls (15% buyer's premium) 258-lot sale on July 14, the top lot of which, a £24,000 George III mahogany longcase, was illustrated on the front cover of Antiques Trade Gazette No. 1650 dated July 31 and August 7.

CHANNELLING more routine furniture through their Bicester auctions, the Oxford base of Mallams (15% buyer's premium) has been able to focus on selling more unusual, decorative and commercial entries, much to auctioneer Ben Lloyd’s satisfaction.

A RELATIVELY quiet day for S.J. Hales (15% buyer's premium) who specialise in English ceramics, but the August 4 sale still attracted plenty of Staffordshire specialists as usual.

RIGHT: although an undeniably rare beast, the super-cute sleeping Wemyss piglet, just 6 1/2in (16.5cm) long, has made a number of appearances at Sotheby's Gleneagles over the years.

THE Lambert Collection of British art pottery and furniture comes under the hammer at Bonhams Bond Street (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) on September 22.

THE most topical entry in Clevedon Salerooms (15% buyer's premium) large 1200-lot outing on June 17-18 was a collection of Olympics memorabilia. Entered by descendants of the 1908 gold medal winning water polo player Thomas H. Thould, the group fetched £3300.

TRADITIONAL favourite in the form of a mantel clock led Stride & Son's (15% buyer's premium) 1000-lot July 30 sale but probably more eye-catching were the collectors’ items. The clock, a 19th century mahogany example in a Georgian-style balloon case by London makers Camerer Cuss, went to a Kent buyer at £2300.

EARLIER this year Bloomsbury Book Auctions moved to Mayfair’s Maddox Street and changed their name to the all-embracing Bloomsbury Auctions (17.5/10% buyer’s premium).

INTEREST from UK furniture dealers in these Channel Islands sales may have waned of late, but Martel Maides (15% buyer's premium) reckon they are benefiting from Jersey’s lack of a permanent fine art saleroom (although the annual Bonhams sale at St Helier comes round this month).

COLLECTING fashions come and go, but the redoubtable Marcel Dyf (1899-1995) never seems to be short of admirers. This signed 23 1/4in x 2ft 4in (59 x 71cm) canvas, right, La Courbe de la Rivière, was the lone picture highlight of Dreweatt Neate’s (15% buyer’s premium) August 24 sale in Bristol when it sold to the London trade at £7600 against an estimate of £4000-6000.