A pair of ballet shoes worn by Dame Margot Fonteyn is estimated at £400-600 in Hansons’ June 30 sale in Etwall, Derbyshire.
The pointe shoes were apparently left by Fonteyn after a dancing class in London during the 1950s. They were collected by the vendor’s mother, a Miss Plak, who was working as a jewellery maker and wardrobe mistress for a ballet company at the time.
Fonteyn was the foremost English ballerina of her generation and spent her entire career dancing for the Royal Ballet. In 1962, she received 23 curtain calls after a performance of Giselle with her partner Rudolf Nureyev in Covent Garden.
A first edition of Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) is included in Lawrences of Crewkerne’s June 16 sale in Somerset.
The three-volume first issue, which features a ‘Chapter XXV’ misprint in Volume II, was published by James R Osgood, McIlvaine & Co of London in 1891. This example has sustained some spotting and staining, mostly to the rear of Vol III, while Vol II has had a cracked joint repaired and the cloth gilt binding is soiled and dulled to the spines. It is guided at £1000-1500.
Originally serialised in The Graphic in 1891, Hardy’s tale of a fallen woman received mixed reviews when it first appeared, in part because it challenged the sexual morals of late Victorian England.
lawrences.co.uk or see this item on thesaleroom.com
As the British and Irish Lions campaign gets under way in New Zealand this summer, Mullock’s in Ludlow, Shropshire, will offer this relic from the 1955 tour.
The British Lions rugby shirt was worn by the late scrum-half, REG ‘Dickie’ Jeeps (1931-2016), on the tour to South Africa. He is one of a select group of players capped for the Lions before being picked by their country. He played in all four test matches, which the Lions drew 2-2.
Jeeps went on to captain both England and the Lions in the 1950s and ‘60s, which included playing all four matches of the Grand Slam Five Nations Championship in 1957. He was elected president of the Rugby Football Union in 1976-77.
The No 8 shirt, with an embroidered Lions crest, is estimated at £800-1000 in the June 21 sale.
mullocksauctions.co.uk or see this item on thesaleroom.com
A sale dedicated to stamps, postcards and postal history will take place at Tennants on June 21-22 in Leyburn, North Yorkshire.
The sale contains more than 800 lots, including a collection of pre-stamp entries and outer letter sheets, charting the history of the development of postal markings in York from 1667-1849.
This unusual rocker balance-type set postal scales, c.1850, is constructed in brass with Poupard 30 Wych St Strand engraved to the counterweight, and is estimated at £800-1200.
tennants.co.uk or see this item on thesaleroom.com
