Auctioneers

One of 170 complete copies of the privately printed Cranwell edition of the 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom, A Triumph', 1926, by TE Lawrence (better known as Lawrence of Arabia) leads the Swann Galleries sale on May 16 in New York.

Last week’s spectacular $14.5m sale of an ancient ‘stargazer’ idol has been placed in doubt after the Turkish government challenged Christie’s right to sell it.

Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald were among the financial big-hitters when a third part of the extensive Maurice F Neville collection of modern literature was sold by Sotheby’s New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on April 24.

Sold for £6000 in a Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of March 30 was a copy of one of the earliest books on swimming.

“Wait a minute. You’re putting my gloves in jail? This is awful. How can you put my gloves in jail? They ain’t done nothing… yet!”

Compiled by J Wells Kelly and published in San Francisco in 1862, a rare copy of the First Directory of Nevada Territory…, which was worn, dry and splitting but in original, leather-backed printed boards, sold for $6500 (£5080) in a PBA Galleries sale of April 20.

A collection of early 20th century German works on paper, brought to England in the possession of a German academic who fled the Nazis on the eve of the Second World War, appeared at Canterbury Auction Galleries (20% buyer’s premium) on April 4-5.

Catch of the day at Cockermouth auctioneers Mitchells’ (20% buyer’s premium) sporting sale on April 8 was a cast of a salmon. The 48lb fish, cast by Mallochs of Perth, was estimated at £1800-2000 but was reeled in by a Scottish enthusiast at £5200.

Best round scores in the most recent PBA Galleries (20/15% buyer’s premium) golfing sale came with the appearance of a group of the papers of golfing historian and collector CB Clapcott.

Gustave Vichy was probably the most accomplished manufacturer of automata in fin de siècle France. A prime example of his art is putting in an appearance at the May 20 sale of Auction Team Breker in Cologne.

A scarce complete portfolio of 26 prints from Erté’s (1892-1990) famed Alphabet Suite appeared at Henry Adams (20% buyer’s premium) on April 12 in Chichester.

The largest group of photographs from Berenice Abbott (1898-1991) to come on the market since the Museum of the City of New York deaccessioned its duplicates in 2002 is offered in Heritage Auctions’ photographs sale on May 18-19.

This 176oz Victorian presentation silver centrepiece offered for sale at Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury on April 25 has a strong Dutch connection.

ATG’s weekly selection of items on sale at auctions and dealerships.

A relatively unfamiliar name in Nordic works is under the spotlight at Bruun Rasmussen in Copenhagen in its Nordic Design auction on Thursday, June 8.

Classic antiques from furniture and works of art to scientific instruments and a Roman marble torso all feature in Artcurial’s evening sale in its Paris rooms on May 16.

Symbols of good fortune and longevity in both China and Japan, cranes cast in bronze with incised decoration were simply catalogued as oriental at the April 10 sale held by Edinburgh auction house Thomson Roddick (16% buyer’s premium).

A painting of St Tropez by the Fauvist painter Charles Camoin (1879-1965) went under the hammer for the first time in more than half a century at Gildings (15% buyer’s premium).

“We were somewhere around Barstow when the drugs began to take hold” are the opening words of Hunter S Thompson’s notorious and loosely autobiographical novel Fear and Loathing Las Vegas…

Reversing the usual pattern where it is an author’s first book that makes the big money, it is the last of the 38 books featuring Richmal Crompton’s most famous children’s book creation that has for many years been one of the most expensive purchases for collectors.