Auctions

One would expect to see a Winchester 1873 ‘repeater’ holding up a bank in Santa Fe, not aimed at a tiger in the Indian Raj, but strangely enough it appears that Edward, Prince of Wales had more in common with outlaws like Angelo and Jesse James than previously realised.

“It is hard to source good quality fresh to market goods these days,” said auctioneer Guy Schwinge after a monthly sale in Dorset, echoing the hardships faced by many other auctioneers around the country.

One of the great names of 17th-century Spanish still life painting is undoubtedly that of Juan van der Hamen, whose brief career as a court painter in Madrid spanned the decade of the 1620s.

UK: SIR Alfred James Munnings proved as great a magnet as ever at Sotheby’s South’s Billingshurst rooms on July 18 when a watercolour sketch for one of his oil paintings fetched a hammer price of £62,000, more than double the low estimate.

A previously unknown and early draft of one of the key closing chapters of James Joyce’s Ulysses, the Eumaeus episode, was offered at Sotheby’s on July 10, and it was one of two committed private buyers who took the lot to £780,000, just short of the low estimate.

THERE WAS no competing with Harry Potter in the Sotheby’s sale of July 10, and bidding rose to £75,000 for Thomas Taylor’s original illustration for the the book that launched those wizard tales in 1997, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, but Beatrix Potter did her bit too, as did Edmund Dulac, Kay Nielsen, W. Heath Robinson, E.H. Shepard, Lawson Wood, Ronald Searle, Dr Seuss and others.

IT is rare for childhood toys to emerge from years of love and affection unscathed by the ravages of time but a Kidderminster vendor was rewarded for the care taken with the 1960s battery operated robot, pictured, which came under the hammer at the Chester rooms of Halls (15 per cent buyer’s premium) on June 27.

Furniture coming fresh to the market from a cottage in Petersfield attracted the majority of interest at this 490-lot dispersal at Jacobs & Hunt on June 15.

UK: After months of speculation as to whether Tim Clifford might be able to secure a private treaty purchase on behalf of the National Galleries of Scotland, Michelangelo’s (1475-1564) pen and ink Study of a Mourning Woman finally came under the hammer at Sotheby’s (20/15/10% buyer’s premium) July 11 Old Master drawings sale with an estimate of £5-7m.

FRIDAY 13th proved a long day at Glendining’s (15 per cent buyer’s premium) with 735 lots – not that this was unlucky. It was, as usual, a general sale but there is plenty of general interest to write about.

THE local west Scottish trade were the driving force behind the 75 per cent take-up on the 589 lots offered at Mctear's. Glasgow on June 15 – including the surprise star piece.

THE wheels may be coming off RailTrack and rail shares plunging generally, but in the older parallel world of steam things could hardly be better. Looking at sales figures of 544 lots getting away out of 550 offered and a total of £383,000 on June 16 at Sheffield Railwayana Auctions, other auctioneers can only envy Ian Wright’s decision some years ago to specialise in railwayana.

UK: Children’s past playthings, toys for bigger boys and nostalgic mementos of cult TV programmes. All these could be found this month in the London rooms.

A well-wrapped and padded pair of boxing gloves are essential, one would think, for victory in the ring. But arguably it was the defective nature of the left hand glove, pictured here, which gave Cassius Clay his win over Henry Cooper in 1963, after letting him off the hook.

Golf fans will acknowledge the significance of this contraption, only the third wooden gutty cutter to ever have appeared at auction.

UK: The highest and arguably most unexpected result in the 19th century section of Sotheby’s July 11 Works of Art sale came with the piece pictured here, a 3ft 7in (1.1m) high silvered statue of Galatea by Max Klinger which sold for £220,000. The subject is a characteristically symbolist work showing the sea nymph seated on a mottled grey marble throne carved with dolphins and is perhaps inspired by Gustave Doré’s painting shown at the 1880 Salon, and by Huysmann’s novel A Rebours.

GERMANY: Over the last few years there has been an increasing awareness that high quality works will always fetch exceptional auction prices almost regardless of where they come up for sale.

UK: Christie’s Continental Furniture sale on July 4 (17.5/10% buyer's premium) included a small nine-lot section devoted to Neapolitan piqué work: tortoiseshell objects inlaid with mother-of-pearl and silver, which proved decidedly popular.

“Everyone’s looking over their shoulder and being careful not to overstock at the moment,” says Stephen Mould of Sotheby’s (10% buyer’s premium), whose June 27-28 single-owner sale of Finest and Rarest Wines The Great Collection nonetheless took £2.4m, the fourth highest total ever achieved for a single-owner wine sale.

THEY came, they saw, they appeared interested – but on sale day at Holloways, Banbury, the buyers, particularly the trade, were in the cautious sort of mood auctioneers across Britain have been experiencing in the quiet post-Olympia days.