Auctions

Alongside two key early maps of colonial North America (see News, ATG No 2422) the sale at Ramsay Cornish (20% buyer’s premium) in Edinburgh on December 7 was distinguished by five-figure bids for two rare items.

Michael Faraday’s laboratory notebook from 1851 includes a series of diagrams illustrating what he called ‘magnetic lines of force’ – the magnetic field lines that are central to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry.

For better or worse, Brexit is finally set to proceed and will be a major factor in the year ahead – as will timed auctions, anti-money laundering rules, the looming prospect of a near-total ivory trade ban, antiquities challenges and a new buying ethos based on cultural sensitivities, changes at major fairs and a growing ‘green’ movement.

“I will always be a painter of beaches,” declared Eugène Boudin (1824-98) in 1864.

This Neoclassical drawing by the Swedish sculptor Johann Tobias Sergel (1740-1814) proved very popular in the opening Old Master works on paper section of the mixed-discipline traditional sale held by the Hôtel des Ventes de Monte-Carlo 25% buyer’s premium) on November 27 in Monaco.

Egypt views stand out among a selection also involving many other worldwide works

Bid to £3000 at Chiswick Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) on November 20 was a rare and early game.

Tucked inside an18th century treen model of a ship’s hull is a historic note reading This was taken out of a writing bureau belonging to Lord Collingwood. I saw the bureau and know its history.

Depiction of Emperor Shah Jahan is thought to have been prepared for his official chronicle.

Matthew Barton (25% buyer’s premium) attracted international interest in this early-19th century German gold snuff box at his November 20 London sale.

A recent sale at C&T in Tunbridge Wells included an unexpected bid of £1700 (estimate £50-70) for three unopened Airfix models.

While individuals and pairs from the suite of five bronze cricketers by Joseph Durham (1814-77) are occasionally seen on the rostrum, it is rare to find all five appearing together.

This Victorian mother-of-pearl and abalone shell card case is carved with a portrait of George Lord Byron, the most flamboyant and notorious of the major English Romantic poets.

In 1906, three years after he had founded the Wiener Werkstätte with Koloman Moser, the multi-talented Austrian Josef Hoffmann designed a silver casket.

When Theodoros Patros Vryzakis (1814-78) was only a young boy, his father was executed by the Turks during the Greek War of Independence.

A story of extraordinary peacetime gallantry of a Cumbrian seaman turned coalminer was at the heart of a group of medals, photographs and press cuttings offered at Reeman Dansie (20% buyer’s premium) at Colchester on November 28.

Items from the estate of the Dame Elisabeth Frink (1930-93) were included in the Charterhouse (25% buyer’s premium) sale in Sherborne, Dorset, on November 14-15.

The relatively short reign of the Ming emperor Xuande (1425-35) was considered a high point in the production of bronze works of art.

A set of famous and highly collectable photographic portraits by a well known photographer and a rare postcard painted by a German Expressionist were two highlights of an auction at Berlin saleroom Grisebach (30/25% buyer’s premium) on November 27.

In the 130th anniversary year of the birth of Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), a collection of ceramics by the leading figure of the French avant-garde was a sell-out at Bonhams’ Prints and Multiples sale on December 11-12.