News

ONE of the more expensive lots in this Cumbrian sale at Thomson Roddick & Medcalf on 6 November was an 1881 [Philadelphia] limited edition of the Complete Poems and Prose of Walt Whitman. An ex-library copy in well worn cloth and bearing a typescript note that it was bought “...at the sale of the library of the late Lord Rosebery”, it made £920. Some copies are signed, but the catalogue referred only to a manuscript limitation statement.

Thomas Gainsborough: A Country Life, by Hugh Belsey, published by Prestel. ISBN 379132784 £14.95hb

William Beckford 1760-1844: An Eye for the Magnificent, edited by Derek E Ostergard, published by Yale University Press ISBN 30009068. £50 hb

The table pictured right was very much the star entry in a 230-lot sale of English and Continental furniture and works of art held at Bonhams (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) Bond Street rooms on November 26. It singled handedly accounted for a third of the entire £787,620 auction total when it made £260,000. Nothing else came near this in price, the next most expensive entry being a £19,000 Louis XV period marquetry commode.

Shrewsbury–based Halls Fine Art have agreed to sell their Chester saleroom business to manager and auctioneer Adrian Byrne as a going concern. The decision was made as Halls’ lease on the saleroom came up for renewal. Halls Fine Art director Richard Allen said: “It was considered prudent to consolidate our existing expertise in areas where Halls already has regional offices, particularly in the Shropshire border towns and Central Wales.”

Cabinets of Curiosities by Patrick Mauriés, published by Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0500510911 £39.95hb

Susie Cooper: A Pioneer of Modern Design, edited by Andrew Casey and Ann Eatwell, published by the Antique Collectors Club. ISBN 1851494111 £29.50