Bonhams

Two iconic Colt pistols were the big money-earners from both sides of the Atlantic in the pre-Christmas arms and armour sales.

At Bonhams in London this single-barrelled 28-bore made in 1877 for one of the sons of Prince Duleep Singh reached £20,000.

Nicolas-Noel Boutet and Anton Vincent Lebeda pistols star at two London auctions.

The oldest surviving FA Cup was bought by Manchester City FC owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed when it sold at auction last year, it has now been revealed.

‘Exceptional’ Victorian piece that made £56,000 leads a look at recent notable sale results.

Bonhams has set a new record for a toby jug with this c.1785 Admiral Lord Rodney jug.

A recent sale at Franklin Browns (18% buyer’s premium) in Edinburgh on included one of the most ambitious and most desirable of all early 19th century Staffordshire figure groups: the 'Polito’s Menagerie of the wonderful burds and beasts from most parts of the world'.

Bonhams has a long tradition of single-owner sales devoted to noted collections of early English porcelain.

The rules of kriegsspiel (war game), popular at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, were partly based on the much older game of chess. Typically, kriegsspiel was played across three boards, with players only knowing the position of their own pieces and an umpire officiating.

A marine battle scene believed to have once been owned by auctioneer James Christie (1730-1803) topped Bonhams’ (27.5%/25/20/14.5% buyer’s premium) latest Old Master sale in London.

A London auction offering ceramics fans a treat thanks to single-owner collections and a mixed array leads a look at the market as a whole

Closing the year in some style, a patinated and parcel gilt bronze ‘double size’ figure of St George set a new auction record for Sir Alfred Gilbert (1854-1934) at Bonhams.

A handwritten account of the battle of Rorke’s Drift by Lt John Chard of the Royal Engineers, who led the renowned stand against the Zulu attack, sold for a hammer price of £140,000.

Among the successful lots in a History of Science & Technology sale held by Bonhams Los Angeles (27.5/25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) was a group of five signed and inscribed offprints from periodical publications of papers and other work by the logician, mathematician and analytic philosopher, Kurt Gödel.

The traditional pre-Christmas Old Masters auctions in London were something of a mixed bag this year.

A sledge and flag from the first expedition to the Antarctic led by Ernest Shackleton have been saved for the nation.

Americana, travel and natural history were billed as the main attractions of a sale at Bonhams New York (27.5/25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium).

The Anschluss of 1938 between Nazi Germany and Austria had a devastating effect on Vienna’s Jewish population.

Something of a recurring theme at auctions this year has been the increasing volume of bidders registering for sales during the pandemic.

The market for William Roberts (1895- 1980) has expanded significantly in the last two decades and the performance of two small watercolours at Bonhams suggested demand is still healthy.