Auction Reports

At Keys (20% buyer’s premium) in Aylsham a lot catalogued as ‘a patinated bronze group of a lion attacking a horse’ drew – and to an extent commanded – much attention.

Form, colour and condition are defining criteria in the oak market – and unfortunately this 17th century oak ‘credence’ offered by Claydon Auctioneers (19.5% buyer’s premium) in Middle Claydon, Buckinghamshire, on April 27 was a lacking on at least two fronts.

This vessel with its cluster of bottles around a central conical vase is one of several well-known Dresser-Linthorpe models that owe a debt to pre-Columbian art.

This original poster marks Live Aid, the dual-venue benefit concert held simultaneously in London and Philadelphia on July 13, 1985.

A gold winner’s medal awarded for the 1893 FA Cup – Wolverhampton Wanderers’ first major trophy – sold for £8000 at Mullock’s (20% buyer’s premium) on April 29-30.

Norfolk auction house sells 11 guns with provenance to one of the most renowned enthusiasts

A Purdey & Sons double-barrel hammer rifle built in 1875 for the Prince of Wales’ Indian tour of 1875-76 sold for £8000 at the Gavin Gardiner (25% buyer’s premium) live online auction of Modern & Vintage Sporting Guns on April 22.

The investiture of the Prince of Wales in July 1969 was a pageant for the television age: held at Caernarfon Castle on a circular dais beneath a transparent Perspex canopy.

Such has been the fall in prices of Georgian card tables that it has become the norm for auctioneers to estimate most at well below £1000.

Among 83 lots of film and entertainment memorabilia offered at Lacy Scott & Knight (20% buyer’s premium) in Bury in St Edmunds was a British quad-size poster for 'Dr No', the first James Bond film starring Sean Connery released in 1962.

Estimated at just £1000-1500, this late-17th century walnut eight-day longcase clock sold via thesaleroom.com for £11,000 at Elstob & Elstob (22% buyer’s premium) in Ripon.

Well before the darker Batman film versions of directors Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan there was a more innocent era of Batman on the big and small screens.

Appearing in 1937, a couple of years after the locomotive itself was launched, the LMS Princess Elizabeth was the biggest and best locomotive that Hornby ever made.

The sale at garden statuary specialist Summers Place Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) in Billingshurst on March 24 (the day after lockdown) was among the first conducted under new government restrictions on social distancing.

The Penal Laws weigh heavily on the history of Ireland. Before they were largely repealed in the period 1778-93, the series of statutes were imposed in an attempt to force Irish Catholics (and Protestant dissenters) to accept the established Church of Ireland.

A recent sale conducted by Michael Bowman (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Newton Abbot, Devon was a homespun affair – held in the auctioneer’s house, with his wife handling phone and commission bids and two assistants operating the bidding platforms remotely by way of a loudspeaker mobile phone link.

Brought into Wolverhampton firm Cuttlestones (17.5% buyer’s premium) on a valuation day, this early-19th century anti-slavery tobacco box sold to a UK bidder on thesaleroom.com for £480.

Held over three pre-lockdown days on March 5-7, Evesham saleroom Kingham & Orme’s (23% buyer’s premium) auction was rich in the best of English and European decorative arts.

Contents of Palladian home in County Durham provide showpiece auction in Newbury

Sir William Whitfield and Andrew Lockwood shared a love of English blue and white transfer printed pottery and associated pearlwares and creamwares.