Auctioneers

A recent rare books sale at Heritage Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) in the US delivered strong performances for a handful of coveted 20th century firsts in dust jackets.

When Daniel Lambert, the famously rotund prison warden from Leicester, died in June 1809 at the Waggon and Horses Inn at Stamford, Lincolnshire, the title of ‘England’s fattest man’ transferred to a new contender.

A Louis Comfort Tiffany pendant-necklace with matching ear clips in gold, star sapphire, moonstones, and enamel hammered for $200,000 (£148,000) at Doyle (28/27% buyer’s premium).

A recent sale of Modern Art & Design at Mallams (25% buyer’s premium) in Oxford included a local collection of 21 pots by John Ward (1938-2023).

Works by two of the biggest names in art history put in a strong performance at the latest series of Old Master auctions in London.

A rare poster heralding the birth of the British punk movement hammered for a massive £43,000 (plus 24% buyer’s premium) at Omega Auctions on July 1.

A fine example of the Libertas Americana silver medal is estimated to fetch between £50,000-80,000 at Anderson & Garland’s Fine Silver and Objects of Vertu auction in Newcastle on July 22.

Almost singlehandedly, Sir Laurence Whistler (1912-2000) revived the tradition of British diamond point engraving in the post-war era. His stippled glass goblets were particularly innovative: engraved on both sides of the bowl with views of the English countryside, they create an illusion of perspective.

Rolling to top lot honours in New York at Swann Auction Galleries (25% buyer’s premium) was a 1929 poster for the long defunct automotive brand Pierce-Arrow.

A rarity at a recent Woolley & Wallis (26% buyer’s premium) ceramics and glass sale was a late 18th century Wedgwood basalt intaglio seal, featuring a profile portrait of the notorious American spy Captain Nathan Hale (1755-76) beside the reversed inscription 'My Country!!!'.

Lyon & Turnbull’s (26% buyer’s premium) sale marking the centenary of the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes - the event that later gave Art Deco its name - included a Lalique glass vase that was shown at the event. Quatre Figurines Femmes Formant Soutien, standing 6½in (17cm) high and modelled as a quartet of crouching female nudes supporting an ovoid bowl, was made using the cire perdue (or lost wax) technique.