Auctioneers

An archive of very early photography is to be offered at auction in the US next month.

Christopher Dresser (1834-1904) designed two electroplated claret or water jugs for Elkington & Co of Birmingham in 1885 – both of them daring designs inspired by vessels from antiquity.

It has been a busy season for ornithological favourite Archibald Thorburn (1860-1935) with a number of quality pictures previously sold by leading dealers reappearing at auction and attracting keen interest.

Given that most antique furniture at auction tends to be good value only for the buyer these days, one can perhaps understand why it occasionally does not always receive the attention it once merited from auctioneers and valuers. As a result, occasionally a special item slips through.

Among the Charles Tunnicliffe works drawing the most attention at Halls’ sale on September 15 (see main story) were pictures bought by the vendor directly from the artist’s family, with whom they were acquainted.

A portrait of the composer Claude Debussy painted by the French artist Jacques-Emile Blanche (1861-1942) met with a flurry of phone bids when it came up for sale on October 12 in Paris.

Illustrated from drawings made by William Gibb, printed under his supervision and signed by the author, George Petree, one of 16 special copies of Dundee, its Quaint and Historic Old Buildings that were printed on Japanese paper in 1895 made a far higher than expected result at auction.

It was not to high-end purist tastes, but ballet pioneer’s collection reeled in eager bidders

Aided by strong American bidding action, the collection of Andrew Crawforth, the late Portobello Road trader and leading authority on early metalware, turned base metal into gold when all 431 lots – offered wihtout reserve – sold at Bonhams’ (27.5% buyer’s premium) Edinburgh sale.

Stand-out cartographic lots sold in Gloucestershire include a string of early rarities

Excellent selection of the artist’s wildlife works had been wrapped up and kept pristine.

Underground or overground, London travel memorabilia amounted to a £95,000 hammer total at Catherine Southon (24% buyer’s premium).

Complete year runs of Beano from the years 1958 and ‘59 that sold at £3050 and £3550 topped the bidding in a Comic Book Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) timed online sale that ended on August 29.

A pair of Sphinx garden ornaments estimated at just £300-500 at a Suffolk auction were hammered down at £195,000.

The original ‘Poohsticks’ bridge from AA Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh books is to return to the ‘Hundred Acre Wood’ after it was bought by Buckhurst Park estate owner Lord De La Warr.

Small bronzes form part of a group of sculptures underlining the market demand at regional salerooms.