Auctioneers

Locks of Beethoven’s hair are known to have been taken from the composer on his deathbed in 1827, but an earlier and substantial sample featured in a recent London sale. Sold for £28,000 at Sotheby’s (25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) against an estimate of £12,000-15,000, it is certainly a well-documented souvenir.

With an infamous lack of a ‘signature’ look, Northern Irish painter Colin Middleton (1910-83) is something of an art historical chameleon.

A poet and dramatist, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, was once considered by many to be the true author of Shakespeare’s plays.

Italy – or more specifically Sicily – came up trumps for Stamford auction house Batemans (20% buyer’s premium) in the form of this 4½in (11cm) carved coral and copper-gilt urn and cover.

Other than davenports, few pieces of functional antique furniture fell farther down the price ladder during the slump than sofa tables but the examples here bucked the fashion at Moore Allen & Innocent (20% buyer’s premium) of Cirencester.

The fitted interior of this William & Mary casket, below, was later but its fine brass-bound marquetry exterior with hidden lock mechanism made it the most eye-catching lot at Mallams’ (22.5% buyer’s premium) auction in Cheltenham on June 6.

Pictured here is the front page of the scarce second issue of Dandy, published in January 1937, along with an even rarer example of the jumping frog toy that was given away with the comic as a promotion.

Irish art market makes a sedate journey back to strength as local buyers dominate.

ATG asked practitioners to explain the ins and outs of this increasingly popular auction format.

Ceramics commemorating the coronation of Edward VIII are less rare than often supposed, having been produced in abundance before the coronation was aborted. Most bring relatively small sums.

Featuring in the same two-day auction as a £7000 cache of Beatrix Potter ephemera found in a Cumbrian Victorian villa which had made national headlines, this less-heralded sofa impressed at 1818 Auctioneers (17.5% buyer’s premium).

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period June 13-19, 2019. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

‘Boxing Badgers’ is one of just two known occasions when the celebrated taxidermist Peter Spicer (1839-1935) ventured into the strange world of the anthropomorphic tableau.

In the 1950s French designer Raymond Cohen and his firm Cohray were producing a range of ultra-modern furniture that – although made for the machine age – were all put together by hand.

The resurgent interest in quality Japanese material and the slower revival of English furniture were both evident in a cabinet on stand sold at West Sussex auction house Toovey’s (24.5% buyer’s premium).

Bearing a thumbprint on the title-page – along with a note by a secretary, Susan Macey, witnessing it as genuine – a 1988 UK edition of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief of History of Time… was estimated at £200-400 but sold for £3000 in a May 30 sale.

The success of timed online auctions for London’s big auction houses is putting the format on the map for other salerooms too.