Auctioneers

A selection of fine or unusual bindings seen at auction during the summer months will feature more prominently in a future issue, but shown here is a 1751 first of Thomas Gray’s An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard in a striking later binding that was among lots offered at Chiswick Auctions (25/12% buyer’s premium) on July 12.

Part of the intake for a general sale, a terracotta sculpture by a protégé of Antonio Canova sold for £21,000 (plus premium) at Reeman Dansie in Colchester.

A small but enigmatic study attributed to Victorian artist Matthew Ridley Corbet (1850-1902) drew dramatic competition at John Nicholson’s in Fernhurst, Surrey.

It was not only in London that Eastern daggers made a big impression in UK auctions this summer.

On the day that the Bastille was stormed Louis XVI famously recorded “rien” (nothing) in his game book.

Two French corkscrews were the top lots of Henry Aldridge & Son’s auction of the first tranche of a single-owner collection of around 450 examples.

Signed in gold to the 10in (25cm) damascus barrels Manton London, the best-known name among London gunsmiths, a cased pair of 25-bore flintlock duelling pistols led the specialist arms and armour sale held by Antony Cribb (22% buyer’s premium) at Abingdon on July 24.

It has not been a vintage season for armour in the saleroom, but some of the recent highlights from London and Munich are shown here.

June and July brought a rich crop of auctions in London, around the country and overseas. A few of those sales and stand-out results have already been reported on these and the ATG news pages, but many more hammer highlights were achieved.

A famous royal regiment was remembered at the Peter Francis (20% buyer’s premium) auction in Carmarthen.

A very suitable buyer emerged for an 19th century picture of The Artists Rifles by John Evan Hodgson (1831-95) offered in Exeter.

It took a bid of €60,000 (£53,100) to secure a pair of flintlock pistols of c.1730 from the armoury of the Princes of Lobkowitz at Hermann Historica (25% buyer’s premium) in Munich in May.

Demand for Scottish artist with a ‘distinctive personality’ drives a good auction result in Somerset.

The classic English sporting gun is a sidelock, but for many the ‘round-action’ shotguns perfected by John Dickson of Edinburgh in the 1870s are the most elegant of all.

“I would say in the short term it hasn’t put buyers off but I don’t have a crystal ball so I don’t know what the future will hold.” Auctioneer Henry Meadows’ take on the forthcoming ivory ban will be shared by many a regional auctioneer in the wake of summer sales.