Auctions

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.

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.

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: 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.

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.

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

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.

UK: This article looks at a magnificent Book of Hours illustrated for one of the wealthiest prelates and patrons of the arts in 16th century Europe, Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg.

“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.

A BIBLE was one of several lots that moved into the four-figure range in this summer sale at Y Gelli in Hay on June 8.

While Lyon & Turnbull enjoyed the lion’s share of the audience for the two sales in Edinburgh at the end of June, Phillips (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) at least had the most surprising result in the form of this Tunbridgeware sewing/writing table by Fenner and Co., estimated at £300-500.

Furniture took the only four-figure bids at this 858-lot Heathcote Ball Leicester sale on June 21 with a George II oak chest-on-stand leading the way.

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.

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: In the days before Lara Croft burst onto the digitalised scene, playtimes revolved around the handmade charms of Mitzi, Chloe, Witch, Dutch Girl and other pine wood beauties from the puppet stable of Bob Pelham.

With the dearth of fresh-to-the-market quality antiques, the zeal with which dealers seek out sleepers ensures that few lie dormant. Such was the case at Leominster where an 18th century walnut and marquetry commode, 5ft 10in (1.78m) wide, sailed past its £2000-3000 estimate and sold at £11,800 to a Maltese buyer.

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.

UK: Sleek, stylish, Art Deco abstraction is what counts most in a design for Clarice Cliff collectors and this piece, which came up for sale at Phillips (15/10% buyer’s premium) on July 5 possessed it in spades.

GERMANY: Lempertz’ Old Masters in Cologne on May 19 produced a hammer total of DM6.7m (£2.1m) and a surprise price of DM192,000 (£60,000), paid by the Italian trade against an estimate of just DM4000, for a Bildnis eines Singers, a portrait of a singer with crimson turban and coat, his left forefinger resting on a musical score, 3ft 1in x 2ft 6in (93 x 77cm).