Auctions

The recent auction of 20th century design at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium) in Stansted Mountfitchet was underpinned by more than 60 consignments from the estate of MJ Long.

Shin-hanga, meaning ‘new prints’, emerged in Japan during the early 20th century. Aimed at Western tastes, the artistic movement combined the traditional colourful woodblock prints known as ukiyo-e with nostalgic and romanticised Japanese subjects.

Sold for £4600 in a February 6 sale held in the Chichester salerooms of Stride & Son (18% buyer’s premium) was an album of cut-paper work produced by Elizabeth Cobbold c.1810-20.

Modestly catalogued as English School, 1960s, a Modern British study of a head emerged as one of the top-selling pictures at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium) in Stansted Mountfitchet.

Star turn among some 120 lots of playing cards offered as part of a Stroud Auctions (18% buyer’s premium) sale was the last to be offered. A complete set of Charles Hodges’ Astronomical Playing Cards, it sold online for £3000.

A 16th century composite suit of armour that had been assembled by a specialist curator in this field at the Metropolitan Museum of Art proved to be the toast of a sale held by Morphy.

In 1914 Western interest in African art was in its infancy. When these two wooden anthropomorphic spoons were shown as part of an exhibition of African wood statuary at the photographer Alfred Stieglitz’s New York gallery in that year it represented a key moment.

A single collection of 490 pieces of Moorcroft dating from the 1890s to modern limited editions offered an overall view of the market when sold at Hansons (20% buyer’s premium).

A sale at Oise Enchères yielded a strong price for a bronze by the French sculptor Louis Hottot (1829-1905).

The arts of the Ottoman court are performing strongly in the marketplace. The unexpected highlight of Lyon & Turnbull’s Five Centuries auction in Edinburgh on February 5 was an Ottoman saddle.

This large and imposing portrait of Pauline Bonaparte, the younger sister of Napoleon, sold for$310,000 (£238,700) in New York last week.

Three Lalique glass panels designed for the dining car of the Côte d’Azur Pullman Express train in 1928 will be offered at auction next week. The Joint Special Managers of Thomas Cook Group are the vendors.

The George Medal awarded to a brave boxer who stepped in to foil a kidnap attempt on Princess Anne is up for auction at Dix Noonan Webb in London with an estimate of £15,000-20,000 on March 4-5.

The latest Impressionist & Modern auctions in London posted the lowest total for a February series in this category for a decade.