Auctions

OFFERED as part of a large sports sale held by Lyon & Turnbull of Edinburgh on July 12 was the angling and sporting library of Major Barton William-Powlett (1871-1953) of Cadhay in Devon.

FOLLOWING the sale of a Charlotte Rhead wall plate for an unexpected £2900 in October last year, the Ilkley, West Yorkshire salerooms of Andrew Hartley received another rare design by the industrial ceramicist for their sale of August 11-12.

THE most expensive single football programme in a June 20-21 sale held by Knights was a 1921 FA Cup Final programme, right, for the game at Stamford Bridge in which Spurs beat Wolves 1-0. It sold for £2400.

WITH rising interest rates, a fluctuating stock market, selective bidding and increasing competition for quality private consignments, now may not be thought to be the most prudent time for expansion but Wotton Auction Rooms (15% buyer's premium) have gone ahead with plans to build a larger saleroom within their existing premises. It will open next month.

ENGLISH Test victories aside, the cricket highlight of the summer was a sale held by Knights at the Holiday Inn, Sandy (Beds) on June 19, which offered over 900 lots of cricket memorabilia.

A COPY of the Lawn Tennis Annual for 1882, compiled by L.S.F. Winslow, made £650 in a June 16-17 sale held in Ludlow by Mullock Madeley.

THERE are local buyers aplenty for Cornish fare such as Newlyn copper and Troika pottery, but for the lion’s share of their sales Lays (15% buyer's premium) depend on a broader geographical spread of dealers and collectors whose participation tends to peter out during the height of the tourist season.

THE controversy over whether fox hunting should be banned may rumble on, but, presumably, even the most committed hunt saboteur could not take exception to this intriguing Victorian fantasy painting.

A LOT from the Michael Wittock collection of important Renaissance bindings sold by Christie’s on July 7, this is one of the two vols. that make up an exceptional copy of the 1540, first Aldine edition of the works of Machiavelli and was one of a large number of books bound in Venice in 1547 for Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, the humanist Bishop of Arras, by a craftsman who came to be known as the Fugger Binder after one of his later patrons.

ONCE owned by a member of Henri III’s ‘Compagnie des Confrères de la Mort’, this psalmbook, right, a 1586 Parisian edition of Le pseaultier de David..., is bound in French sombre morocco.

IN Louis Taylor's (12.5% buyer's premium) 700-lot General and Victoriana Hanley outing on July 12, it was the small collectable entries that generated some of the top prices with a Beswick Lipizaner horse and rider fetching £245, despite extensive damage, and a silver cigar box commemorating Winston Churchill selling at £240.

VINTAGE vehicles are generally the province of specialist auctions, but Tennants (15/10% buyer's premium) finished their July 22-23 sale with a number of such offerings, in particular this 1910 Star 15mph tourer, right.

RIGHT: Indoor Athlete, a signed “first stone” lithograph of 1921 by American artist George Bellows, which made $13,000 (£7065) in a May 21-23 sale held by Northeast Auctions of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

THE London coin auction is indeed evolving. We have the announcement by Stephen Fenton of the birth of St James’s Auctions. Their first sale is scheduled for Wednesday October 13 at the De Vere Cavendish Hotel in Jermyn Street. It seems that this promises to be a very prestigious sale.

AN auction first for specialist Gordon Patrick, the vastly experienced specialist at Clarke Gammon Wellers (15% buyer's premium), was the sleeper and undisputed highlight of the Surrey sale on July 27 – a 2ft (61cm) wide kingwood, rosewood and satinwood inlaid envelope card table entered with a £200-300 estimate.

A HEALTHY take-up for the 170 lots entered without reserve from a period farmhouse in Shropshire provided the backbone of Humberts' (10% buyer's premium) 602-lot Gloucestershire outing on June 29, but it was an early 18th century upholstered walnut wingback armchair consigned from a different private source that proved the star turn.

ALTHOUGH paintings provided the highest prices for Christie’s New York's (19.5% buyer’s premium) Maritime sale on July 29, the 310-lot sale’s smaller miscellany of maritime objects also drew some serious competition for certain objects.

The Parrot Pen-man, an ink and watercolour drawing by Quentin Blake that sold for £1200, was among 40 lots offered at Sotheby’s on July 8 on behalf of the Arvon Foundation, a literary charity that provides residential creative writing courses.

I HAVE often illustrated plates from the works of Maria Sibylla Merian, but never before a portrait of that remarkable lady herself.

EIGHT market-fresh female bronzes by Aristide Maillol, ranging in height from 8-12in (20-30cm) and designed between 1896 and 1905, surfaced in the Binoche (20% buyer’s premium) saleroom on July 2.