Books, ephemera, engravings and pictures from the collection of famed Test Match Special commentator Henry Blofeld will be offered at Chiswick Auctions on March 1.
Alongside an assortment of cricket-related books are several first editions of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, stamped with the armorial bookplate of Blofeld’s father, Thomas.
A close friend of the writer, Blofeld senior was the inspiration behind Bond’s nemesis, the cat-stroking arch-villain Blofeld.
This 1961 first of Thunderball, in which Blofeld makes his debut, is guided at £500-800.
Henry Moore (1898-1986) sketched this small 6½ x 4in (16.5 x 10cm) portrait of a young First World War soldier.
It has been consigned by the family of the sitter, William Loughlin, to Thomson Roddick’s March 3 sale in Carlisle and is offered alongside a signed picture postcard of the sculptor in military uniform.
Though the family know little about Loughlin’s military history, it is possible the pair met in military hospital. Loughlin was a gunner in the Royal Scots Fusiliers and was admitted to hospital with shell shock, later dying of an infection. Moore, who served in the British army, was hospitalised after he was injured in 1917 by a gas attack during the Battle of Cambrai.
The drawing, which appears to have been removed from a notebook, is estimated at £800-1000, while the signed picture of Moore is guided at £100-120.
Estimated at £1500-2000, this 11 x 17in (28.5 x 44cm) untitled gouache on paper by Marc-Antoine Fehr (b.1953) is one of over 200 lots from the collection of Jan Krugier (1928-2008) to be offered at Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions on March 8 in Donnington Priory, Berkshire.
A holocaust survivor, Krugier moved to Paris in 1947 and began a friendship with the artist Alberto Giacometti. With Giacometti’s guidance, Krugier opened Galerie Krugier & Cie in Geneva in 1962, followed in time by a gallery in New York. For over five decades, the gallery showcased many modern masters including Picasso, Giacometti, Cézanne, Klee, Chagall and Degas.
Lots from European Post-war Modernism to Japanese works on paper and tribal art feature in this sale. Both Sotheby’s and Christie’s have auctioned Impressionist and Modern art collected by Krugier in recent years.
Among the earliest ceramics included in Woolley & Wallis’ porcelain and pottery sale in Salisbury on February 28 is this c.15th century Montelupo maiolica jug. The 6½in (16.5cm) high piece is decorated to the swollen body in blue and green enamels and with the figure of an owl. Estimate £500-700.
