Auctions

Leading auction houses around the UK told ATG last week that their sales calendars will continue as planned, with sensible precautions being taken in the saleroom. Many reported strong sales last week but some expressed understandable concern about future consignments. Here is an edited selection of their comments.

A pair of Chinese carved officials’ chairs offered at Ramsay Cornish (20% buyer’s premium) in Edinburgh were typical of the furniture made at the end of the Qing period, some of it for local use, much of it for export.

Offered very early on in the books section of the Travel & Exploration sale at Bonhams (27.5/25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium), a 24-lot collection relating to George Anson amassed by the late Colin Paul, a descendant of the admiral, attracted considerable interest.

This flag offered at East Bristol Auctions (18% buyer’s premium) carries inscriptions for HMS Swiftsure – British Pacific Fleet – 1945, and the Japanese cities Sasebo and Tokyo.

A copy of Sylvia Plath’s 'The Bell Jar' in a well-preserved dust jacket sold for £3000 in a recent Surrey auction may have set a record for any uninscribed or association copy.

A First World War medal fashioned from a Mexican eight reales coin was an unusual feature of a group sold at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (23% buyer’s premium) on February 19.

Four military maps encompassing Siam (Thailand), Hong Kong, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia took an unexpected £3700 at the Peter Wilson (22% buyer’s premium) Arms, Militaria, Medals & Firearms auction earlier this year.

London became the training ground for many young South African artists during the inter-war years. Among them was Cape Town painter Freida Lock (1902-62) who attended Heatherley School of Art and the Central School of Art where she was introduced to the works of post-Impressionists such as Van Gogh, Cézanne and Braque.

A copy of JRR Tolkien’s 'The Hobbit' offered in a recent Surrey sale was a first-impression one of 1937, but essentially defined by its truly sad and defective condition.

Interest from bidders in more than 40 countries competed for what Stroud Auctions (18% buyer’s premium plus VAT) called a “world-class private collection of over 4000 military badges”.

The Crimea medal awarded to one of only two officers taken prisoner by the Russians during the calamitous Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854 sold for £14,000 at London saleroom Dix Noonan Webb (25% buyer’s premium).

Limited-edition work showing Salford artist’s famous football scene nets a new high

Three works selling at regional sales below £3500, including a print of 'Lowry Walking on Swinton Moss' by Harold Riley.

The Paris drawings fair 'Salon du Dessin' has been postponed until the end of May because of the coronavirus alert, but some specialist auctions that are scheduled to coincide with the event are still going ahead at the time of writing.

With the UK auction calendar yet to undergo significant changes and cancellations due to the coronavirus outbreak, many sales took place last week. Here are three highlights from around the country.

Among the rarest of all Subbuteo games invented and manufactured by Peter Adolph in Tunbridge Wells are those without a sporting theme.

This pair of 19th century continental silver-gilt figure groups is among the objects from a Rothschild collection to be sold by Woolley & Wallis later this year.