Bonhams

Bonhams’ September 25 Exploration and Travel sale in New York opens with the 80-lot Joe Fitzsimmons library devoted to works on Antarctic Exploration.

A painting by the Victorian Neo-classicist painter John Godward (1861-1922) not seen on the market since 1925 is going under the hammer at Bonhams in New Bond Street on September 26.

Real rarities and record breakers are among items that feature in this first of a couple of reviews of more literary lots from the wealth of summer sales. Here the focus is principally on works of the last 200 years or so – and includes such diverse characters as Hugh the Heron and the Invisible Man.

Bonhams’ chairman Robert Brooks is retiring from the auction house after selling the company to private equity group Epiris.

UK dealers buying foreign silver, overseas bidders taking British work and generally solid interest for traditional pieces of mid-ranking silver brightened up the normally quieter late summer sales across the country.

An unpublished letter written by Nelson Mandela from his prison cell on Robben Island is to be offered at Bonhams’ South African sale in New Bond Street on September 14.

After 49 years of trading in Manhattan, ceramics and glass dealer Leo Kaplan Ltd closed its doors earlier this year.

The US-China trade row provides an unwelcome distraction to the September edition of New York’s 'Asian Art Week' (AAW).

Two albums of 19th century watercolours and drawings produced unexpected results in summer sales.

A rare and early combination of a war hammer and pistol was a highlight of the Bonhams (25/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale in Knightsbridge on May 23, selling for £24,000.

The top lot at Bonhams (25/12.5% buyer’s premium) in San Francisco on June 19 was an exceptional cased example of a specially engraved Colt 1851 percussion revolver with shoulder stock.

An early Anglo-Dutch portrait of the swashbuckling English sea captain Sir Francis Drake topped Bonhams’ Old Master paintings sale on July 4 in New Bond Street. It sold for £290,000, just below its juicy £300,000-500,000 guide.