Auctioneers

Hermann Historica (23% buyer’s premium) of Munich mounted its customary assault on the arms and armour market with no fewer than seven catalogues covering more than 6000 objects, ranging from ancient Greek helmets to military and other vehicles.

Art by a pair of 20th century artists who actively avoided belonging to any artistic school or movement stood out in recent US auctions.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

The same French collection that brought the fine pair of Boutet pistols to the Thomas Del Mar Sale on December 6 also included a number of later Continental pistols that were rare and certainly unfamiliar to most British collectors.

The New Year is traditionally quiet in the salerooms but the 1800-lot Cheetham collection generated some real excitement at Adam Partridge (18% buyer’s premium) in Macclesfield.

A complete suit of well-matched period armour is rare indeed, so there was no doubting the star of Bonhams’ (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale in London.

A trio of shotgun sales in the spotlight.

A reminder of the dramatic drop in demand over recent decades for Victorian landscapes was evident in Gloucestershire where two such oils by Sidney Richard Percy (1822-86) went under the hammer.

Holt’s (25/20% buyer’s premium) sale in London on December 14 included two prime examples of weapons designed to get their owners out of a tight corner.

Attributed to the arms manufactory at Ripoll in northern Catalonia, this pair of 18th century miquelet-lock belt pistols (below) proved the surprise lot of the sale held by Italian arms specialist Czerny (20% buyer’s premium) in Sarzana on December 9. In good condition with an overall inlay of pierced and engraved decorative steelwork, they sold for €15,500 (£13,600).

A small painting by Scottish artist Robert Gemmell Hutchison (1855- 1936) took a mid-estimate £6000 at Surrey saleroom John Nicholson’s (24% buyer’s premium).

The ink and watercolour manuscript plan of New York City and the Hudson River seen here was prepared by cartographers attached to the Comte de Rochambeau’s forces during the Yorktown campaign in the American War of Independence, c.1781-82.

More than 100 paintings owned by the Royal Society of Marine Artists are to be sold at auction in Norfolk.

A pastel portrait of a fashionable young Georgian woman in an ostrich feather hat and blue coat with her dog topped the picture section at Lincolnshire saleroom Golding Young & Mawer (20% buyer’s premium).

Focus on lots coming up in sales at four auction houses, two from the UK and two from the US.

An 1894 pencil drawing of a street in Antwerp by Walter Frederick Osborne (1859-1903) was among the last contents offered at auction from West Horsley Place, the Grade I-listed mansion in Surrey owned by historian and broadcaster Bamber Gascoigne.

The American West was the theme of a 43-lot, single-owner collection offered as part of the January 17 sale held by Sotheby’s New York.

Russian America and polar exploration were the twin themes of a Christie’s New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale that offered highlights from the Martin Greene Library.

Asian art sales are always unpredictable, more often than not in a positive sense.

The latest recent arms and armour sales on both sides of the Atlantic serves only to reinforce the impression that pistols remain a huge favourite with collectors in this field.