Sotheby's

Sotheby’s opened its September Asia Week auctions in New York on September 10 with the $8.3m sale of Chinese art consigned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Very different works by Daniel Defoe featured in an online summer sale in London: one famous, the other far removed in its subject matter and probably little known.

Almost exactly contemporary, the two works featured here came from the library of Christian Heuer and were offered as part of a July 1-9 summer sale at Sotheby’s (25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium). Both are distinguished by the observations of their authors.

The highest prices recorded in a Space Exploration sale on July 20 were for video recordings and documents relating to the Apollo 11 mission that featured the first moon landing, but a much earlier, fictional account of a lunar expedition also impressed.

“The wayfarer, as he reached him, saluted with a gesture of courtesy that had something foreign about it”.

Lots offered towards the start of sales at the same auction house prove successful.

Two French scenes by much-travelled husband-and-wife artists Ethel Carrick (1872-1952) and Emanuel Phillips Fox (1865-1915) are highlights of Sotheby’s sale of Australian Art to be held in Sydney on August 27.

Published in 1851 by Richard Bentley as The Whale, the first English edition of Herman Melville’s tale preceded the American issue by four weeks.

Copies of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone impressed in several summer sales.

Despite some minor loss to the head of 'When We Were Very Young', published in 1924 and a first edition of what are now collectively known as the ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’ books, overall the set pictured below is an exceptionally well-preserved one.

It may be a well-rehearsed refrain, but the Old Master market is much more subject to vagaries of supply than demand. Almost without fail, when high-quality fresh material is offered, bidders will come. Just getting it in the first place is the hard part.

No record exists of any signed, autograph letter in the hand of Mao Zedong being previously sold on the international market, said Sotheby’s (25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) of the example it offered as part of a June 11 sale of manuscripts, Continental books and music.