Auctioneers

An extensive collection of René Lalique ‘mascots’ amassed by a collector and dealer who wrote a book on the subject is coming up at auction in East Sussex.

From 1936-45, St Ives artist John Wells (1907-2000) embarked on a series of labour-intensive creations while working as a GP on the Isles of Scilly.

Illustrated with coloured engravings, The History of Sixteen Wonderful Old Women is a work of 1821 that is “thought to be the first printed book of Limericks”.

Two of only 11 leaves of the original, working manuscript of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species… known to remain in private hands were sold at auction in London last month.

Sold for £2500 in a Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) sale of July 25 was an enormous archive of work produced in the 1950s and ‘60s by Leslie Starke (1905-74), a cartoonist once very popular in both the UK and US.

One of Ireland’s leading provincial auction houses, Mealy’s Fine Art of Castlecomer, County Kilkenny, has ceased trading after 84 years.

Private bidders were overtaken as dealers found warmth in the best traditional furniture and chattels offered at auction.

Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) of Leyburn claimed a new auction record for Bertram Priestman (1868-1951) when it sold a painting of an extensive river landscape by the local artist.

Cirencester saleroom Moore Allen & Innocent (20% buyer’s premium) enjoyed a taste of India’s fast-growing art market when three pictures by the Indian folk artist Jamini Roy (1887-1972) were scooped up for a total of £24,500.

Sold at £620 in a July 2 sale held by Hansons (20% buyer’s premium) was a leather-bound promotional catalogue issued by the Walturdaw Cinema Supply Co of Birmingham.

The first stand-alone British and European sculpture sale to be held by Dreweatts (24% buyer’s premium) was a solid-enough affair to justify department head Cristian Beadman’s belief that there is an exploitable gap in the market.

Two depictions of the Madonna painted some 400 years apart were among the highlights of a dedicated sale of pictures at Dreweatts (24% buyer’s premium) in Donnington Priory in Berkshire.

It’s a rare sale these days at which an English furniture standard challenges quality Chinese pieces for price, but the top end of the trade certainly rated a 6ft 3in (1.9m) William and Mary walnut and featherbanded bureau cabinet offered by Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (21% buyer’s premium).

Preparatory and other unused drawings relating to Roald Dahl classics come to auction

Just as fine English mahogany is selling below par, Chinese furniture, particularly in the desirable huanghuali hardwood, is booming.

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.