UK

Preparatory and other unused drawings relating to Roald Dahl classics come to auction

From 1936-45, St Ives artist John Wells (1907-2000) embarked on a series of labour-intensive creations while working as a GP on the Isles of Scilly.

Two of only 11 leaves of the original, working manuscript of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species… known to remain in private hands were sold at auction in London last month.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

An extensive collection of René Lalique ‘mascots’ amassed by a collector and dealer who wrote a book on the subject is coming up at auction in East Sussex.

Two depictions of the Madonna painted some 400 years apart were among the highlights of a dedicated sale of pictures at Dreweatts (24% buyer’s premium) in Donnington Priory in Berkshire.

Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) of Leyburn claimed a new auction record for Bertram Priestman (1868-1951) when it sold a painting of an extensive river landscape by the local artist.

Cirencester saleroom Moore Allen & Innocent (20% buyer’s premium) enjoyed a taste of India’s fast-growing art market when three pictures by the Indian folk artist Jamini Roy (1887-1972) were scooped up for a total of £24,500.

Sold for £2500 in a Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) sale of July 25 was an enormous archive of work produced in the 1950s and ‘60s by Leslie Starke (1905-74), a cartoonist once very popular in both the UK and US.

Anniversary of Cook voyage and a book 15 years in the making underpin London event...

Illustrated with coloured engravings, The History of Sixteen Wonderful Old Women is a work of 1821 that is “thought to be the first printed book of Limericks”.

Simplicity and geometry are key to the works of Eugène Printz, one of the Parisian practitioners of Art Deco design.

Private bidders were overtaken as dealers found warmth in the best traditional furniture and chattels offered at auction.

A selection of fine or unusual bindings seen at auction during the summer months will feature more prominently in a future issue, but shown here is a 1751 first of Thomas Gray’s An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard in a striking later binding that was among lots offered at Chiswick Auctions (25/12% buyer’s premium) on July 12.

Riots broke out in Bury and Blackburn in May 1878 as cotton mill workers protested their low wages. The initially peaceful action escalated as employees attacked the factory and local constabulary, eventually looting and destroying the mill owner’s house.

MADAM – Six hundred and ninety-one people is actually a fairly decent response from a trade in which there are only a handful of interested parties (Letters, ATG No 2353).

Gloucestershire-based British art pottery dealer Alison Davey of AD Antiques has created a series of ‘passports’ for Martin Brothers’ birds.

A selection of highlights from the Chorley's auction on July 24-25 and the Tennants sale on July 21 (also see main Auction Reports story this edition).

Sold at £620 in a July 2 sale held by Hansons (20% buyer’s premium) was a leather-bound promotional catalogue issued by the Walturdaw Cinema Supply Co of Birmingham.

London gallery Fiumano Clase formed in 2017 when dealers Francesca Fiumano and Andrés Clase merged their respective contemporary art dealerships. Its next exhibition, BOOM, is a solo show of works by Roger Holtom. Here, we talk to Fiumano.