Auctioneers

A group of medals awarded to the great scientist, explorer and naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) was fiercely contested at auction last week, hammered down for a £273,000 (or £327,600 with buyer’s premium) total against a high estimate of £80,900.

Chicago auction house Hindman is offering a portrait of Ira Aldridge (1807-67), the first black Shakespearean actor to gain international recognition.

He may have been considered ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’ but items connected to Lord Byron (1788-1824) make for very welcome auction consignments.

Sealed wine bottles possess a powerful sense of time and place. For some collectors it is the regional connections that appeal most.

Bonhams Skinner’s August 13 Americana auction in Massachusetts will feature a wide selection of American, English and Chinese Export works of art and paintings.

Another high price for Helen Bradley (1900-79) came at Cheshire saleroom Wilson55 (22% buyer’s premium) last month.

Sold for $2m (£1.62m) in a major and hugely successful comics sale held by Heritage (20% buyer’s premium) of Dallas was an original cover artwork produced in 1986 by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley for Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #1.

An example of 19th century archaeological revivalist jewellery was one of the best-sellers in the July 8-10 auction at Thomaston Place Auction Galleries (20% buyer’s premium).

Mainland Chinese buyers bidding on jade, porcelain, wooden and textile offerings dominated the leader board at an Asian & Islamic sale at Cheltenham.

Three lots at Tennants’ (22% buyer’s premium) traced the history of Stan Dodds (1928-2012) – the first and foremost of the Critters.

Works by William Ratcliffe (1870- 1955) are pretty rare on the market and, when they do turn up, they tend to appear at London auctions.

The reassuring news from the East began with the first lot offered at Cheffins’ (24.5% buyer’s premium) Fine Sale when 10 China-based bidders competed for a Republican-era porcelain Putai.

Sealed examples with coats of arms, names, dates and places reveal a social history and give an ideal opportunity for genealogical research

The artists’ enclave of Newlyn in Cornwall was not exclusively a colony of painters.

This sealed and dated onion in olive green glass, below, comes with a handwritten scrap of paper inscribed 'George found [this bottle] when he dived into the Thames at Windsor'. The seal reads 'S Slater 1710'.

For reasons of both supply and economics not every collector of English 18th century drinking glasses gets to own a piece from the great Beilby enamelling workshop that operated at Amen Corner in Newcastle in the 1760s-70s.

What would appear to be a rare James Bond promotional poster proved the major attraction of a June 14 sale held by TW Gaze (18% buyer’s premium).

The Aguttes (25/23% buyer’s premium) Old Masters auction on June 28 at Drouot was led by a Murillo oil on canvas depicting the Christ child as The Good Shepherd.

Of all antique sealed bottles, those made for the All Souls College Common Room are probably the most prevalent.

With 207 pieces of silver from the Levant and all points East to China on offer at Chiswick Auctions (25% buyer’s premium), the stand-out pieces were the work of Iranian smiths.