Auctions

“The owner had no idea what they were or what they might be worth. Not a Scooby.”

It is thought that Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770) executed at least a hundred drawings featuring the Punchinelli, the hook-nosed, humpbacked clowns which were central to the commedia dell’arte. Jonathan Franks reports.

Edouard Manet’s (1832-83) small-scale works have always enjoyed a keen following alongside his larger more finished paintings.

Many of the unsung British heroes of both world wars served in the royal and merchant navies carrying and protecting supplies to Russia or the USSR.

On May 6, 1954 - the day British middle-distance athlete Roger Bannister (1929-2018) ran the first ever sub-four-minute mile - there were five official timekeepers plus a sixth watch manned by race commentator Norris McWhirter (1925-2004).

Single page was used as a promotion for this classic Conan Doyle work.

Our weekly selection from salerooms.

Despite – or perhaps because of – the pandemic, three of the top international auction houses posted record or near-record results for 2021.

On November 25 Dix Noonan Webb sold the first tranche of banknotes from the enormous collection of the late Gus Mac Amhlaigh of Dublin.

Successful £15.3m campaign secures British literature treasures including Brontë family manuscripts.

Trademark colourful picture features people depicted with a distinctive style of limbs.

An artist’s painting of his wife turned heads at a recent David Lay (18% buyer’s premium) auction in Penzance, selling over 10 times above estimate.

In 1946 the artist Laura Knight (1877-1970) was commissioned by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee to create a painting of the Nuremberg Trials.

A single-page letter sent on the day before Steve Jobs’ 19th birthday to a close school friend, Tim Brown, sold for $400,000 (£292,825) in New York.

Sixteenth-century globes rarely appear on the market. So, Jim Spencer, Hansons’ works on paper specialist, had been amazed to encounter one at a valuation day in Bishton Hall, Staffordshire.

Perhaps established as early as 1735, the Royal Burgess Golfing Society of Edinburgh holds claim to be the oldest golfing society in the world.

This group of clothing offered at Railtons (20% buyer’s premium) in Wooler, Northumberland, on December 3, was used by geologist and explorer Lawrence Wager (1904-65) during the 1933 Everest expedition.

ATG’s pick of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com, featuring both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.