Auctions

INSCRIBED in both volumes “with the author’s love” to an Edith Barnes, presentation firsts of Lewis Carroll’s over-long children’s story Sylvie and Bruno of 1889 and its continuation or conclusion of 1893, the original red cloth bindings now uniformly faded to the spines, dampstained to the front of Vol. II and showing repairs to the spine ends of the first volume, was sold for £1400 in a Bloomsbury Auctions sale of July 15.

While Dee, Atkinson & Harrison's (10% buyer's premium) August 20 sale did not comprise the best quality works from Ganton Hall, Scarborough, there was no shortage of competition for the there-to-sell and fresh-to-market residual contents from its attics and cellars ensuring that the 483-lot outing eclipsed its £30,000 estimated hammer total at £48,000.

COMPETING against the likes of Carlton Ware and Crown Ducal for market share, cheerful mass-produced ceramics were what the prolific Fieldings Crown Devon factory did best. The best of the second best, if you like.

JOHN Haslam’s Illustrations of Madness of 1810, the first book-length account of a single psychiatric case and a classic of the early literature in this field, was inspired by the case of James Tilly Matthews, a London tea merchant who undertook a self-styled peace mission between France and England in 1793.

THE ebullient Samuel Boscher (16.74% buyer’s premium) was in typically sonorous form for his annual two-day summer jamboree in Cherbourg on August 8/9.

JULY may now seem like ancient history but it is worth putting on record the wholly unexpected performance of a late Regency period circular dining table offered by Mallams (15% buyer’s premium) from their Cheltenham rooms on July 22.

NOW that’s what I call a conservatory – Item No. 237 from a two vol. Illustrated Catalogue of Macfarlane’s Castings of c.1884, this monster is one of the very many items of decorative cast iron railings, gates, balconies, windows, lamps, glasshouses, etc. available from the manufacturers.

ESTIMATED at £70-100 but bid way past that level by Taikoo Books of York was a copy of Captain R.L. Playfair’s History of Arabia Felix or Yemen…, a Bombay imprint of 1859 which also includes an account of the British settlement at Aden.

RIGHT: translated by William Hamilton, the 1661 first English edition of Blaise François de Pagan, the Comte de Merveilles’ Historical & Geographical Description of the Great Country and River of the Amazones in America..., contains this important folding engraved map showing French ambitions in the area.

LABELLED the Worthing Sale, the event held by Gorringes (15% buyer’s premium) in association with Michael Jones & Co in the West Sussex town on August 26 had a number of items from the estate of the late collector/dealer Gary Maple.

BOUND in contemporary panelled calf, a 1704 first of An Historical & Geographical Description of Formosa..., the two folding engraved plates (of 16 in all) torn but skilfully repaired, realised £600 in a Lawrences of Crewkerne sale of July 6.

IT’S been billed as the most important discovery in British numismatics for many years. Now the London auction house Spink are to offer the first newly-discovered Anglo-Saxon gold penny to come to light for almost a century.

PEWTER always forms the first section of Bonhams’ (17.5/10% buyer's premium) oak sales at Chester, and on September 9 enthusiasts, mainly collectors, were there as usual. Most had their eyes on the obvious star offering, the fine Charles II wriggle-work tankard, top right.

ALTHOUGH many vendors decided to hold back some of their best furniture and paintings for the autumn sales, there was enough in Brightwell's (15% buyer's premium) 1266-lot August 11-12 outing to attract holidaymakers as well as some dealers who had not visited Brightwells for some time. As a result, it boasted a healthy 85 per cent take-up by lot and a total of £90,000.

SOLD for $1.4m (£760,870) at Sotheby’s New York on June 18 was a working draft, or heavily annotated multilith copy of the text that was to become known after the organisation established by its compilers as Alcoholics Anonymous.

THE early 20th century George Abraham of Keswick issued three titles that have become classics of rock climbing literature and two of them, offered by Dominic Winter on July 21, are seen right.

JUST shy of their bicentenary, Whytock and Reid, the Edinburgh furniture makers, were forced into liquidation earlier this year. Foreign competition put paid to a company established in 1807 by Richard Whytock and John Reid that, in its 19th and early 20th century glory days, furnished the great houses and castles of Scotland, often working in partnership with the architect Robert Lorimer.

NOW that few dealers can any longer afford routinely to buy pictures for stock, auctioneers, particularly provincial auctioneers, have become increasingly reliant on private individuals to take take up the slack at their art sales.

RIGHT: offered as the final lot of the day, this 21oz Guild of Handicrafts silver and enamel comport proved to be one of the stars of Clarke Gammon Wellers’ sale on September 7.

TO one side of this 4.75in (12cm) high early 19th century lustre and transfer printed jug are the legends No Corn Bill, Universal Suffrage, Annual Parliaments and Vote by Ballot.