Auctioneers

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

The story of Cornish care worker Jordan Rogers, who proved he was the illegitimate son and legitimate heir to a £50m Penrose mansion, made national headlines in May. It also had a knock-on effect in the auctioneering world.

Works produced in the 1940s by Al Hirschfeld figured prominently among the higher priced lots at a June 4 Illustration Art sale held in New York.

September will be a key date in the diary for the French auction firm Osenat, which has announced its expansion with an extra venue and several new departments.

Two recent auctions offered a number of 18th and 19th century English novels by authors unfamiliar to many readers but who are nevertheless in demand through their rare surviving works.

Disbound, but complete and still in the original covers, an 1830 first of William North’s Correct Account of all the Cricket Matches Played by the Nottingham Old Cricket Club from 1771 to 1829 came into bat in a recent Staffordshire sale with an estimate of just £50-100, but went on to score £6400 online via thesaleroom.com.

A Cricket Match (1938) by Mod Brit giant LS Lowry (1887-1976) was the fitting headliner at Sotheby’s. Offered in the midst of the Cricket World Cup, the 18in x 2ft (46 x 61cm) oil on canvas showing a back-street match played by local children in Salford sold for a mid-estimate £950,000 to a UK private buyer.

Combining fine 18th and 19th work by major silversmiths with rarities of scholarly interest, the comprehensively catalogued silver sale at Chiswick Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) appealed to specialists across the market spectrum.

Racing along to a double-estimate £2400, this tinplate clockwork Tri-ang Magic Midget made by Line Bros in 1933, led the field at the 450-lot toys sale at Gildings (15% buyer’s premium) in Market Harborough on June 24.

The recent sale of a single-owner collection of Moorcroft pottery by Kingham & Orme in Evesham demonstrated two distinct faces of the Staffordshire factory.

A rare variant of the classic Second World War commando knife has sold for 200 times its lower estimate at a North Yorkshire auction.

Christie’s marathon 12-hour auction of Indian jewellery and works of art from the Al Thani family held in New York included the finest collection of courtly weapons to come to auction in well over a generation.

Scantily catalogued as a Georgian/Victorian micro-mosaic plaque depicting a dove, a classic example of the pieces produced by Italian craftsmen and beloved by wealthy Britons on the Grand Tour was equally appreciated by bidders at Stroud Auctions (18% buyer’s premium).

Published in Venice in November 1494, a copy of Luca Pacioli’s 'Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proporzioni et proporzionalità…' offered in a recent US sale was granted the rare privilege in the book auction world of having a catalogue all of its own.