News

UK: THERE is a distinctly nervous look about the Dodo pictured here, as befits a creature staring extinction in the beak. This “Facsimile of [Roelandt] Savery’s picture of the Dodo in the Royal Gallery at Berlin” is a plate from H.E. Strickland & A.G. Melville’s The Dodo and its Kindred; or the History, Affinities and Osteology of the Dodo, Solitaire and other Extinct Birds of the islands Mauritius, Rodriguez and Bourbon.

UK: The National Arts Collection Fund has announced that it is to oversee the bequest of 250 works from the studio of the visionary painter Cecil Collins (1908-89) to about 50 galleries and museums across the country.

ITALY: ANOTHER Renaissance magnate, the Doge of Venice, Antonio Grimani (1521-23). His (29mm diameter) portrait medal made Li2m (£670).

US: THE Isle of Wight is seen at lower right in the map illustrated here, which is part of the first large-scale geological map of any country ever issued, Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales, with Part of Scotland... by William Smith.

FRANCE: FRENCH auction law reform has suffered another delay because of bureaucracy, with no sales by foreign auction houses now likely before the autumn.

UK: THE late Bob Ewers is remembered fondly by devotees of diecast toys as one of the key players in founding the UK’s first static model collectors club in Maidenhead in 1969, and there was an enormous response to the dispersal of his collection at the Lewes salerooms of Wallis & Wallis (15 per cent buyer‘s premium) on February 12.

UK: ILLUSTRATED here are just three lots from the remainder of the Sotheby’s Travel sale, representing polar voyages, English topography and Middle Eastern costume.