Auctions

Three oils by the popular East Anglian artist Edward Seago (1910-74) sold for £44,000 hammer at Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium) in a mammoth four-day sale held at its Sussex saleroom.

The extensive spring sale at Schuler (20/18.6/16.6% buyer’s premium) in Zurich lasted from March 18-22. The results were as varied as the works of art on offer.

An Elkington electroplated duck press outsold silver proper at Halls (20% buyer’s premium) of Shrewsbury on March 20.

The biggest surprise at the sale of works of art at Koller (25/22/15% buyer’s premium) in Zurich on March 28 was the result for a bronze figure by Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier (1815-91).

The chain of artistic influences that led to the decoration of a gold-enamel watch made by John Kenable of Frith Street in London in c.1800 can be traced back to 1766.

On account of its relative scarcity, all Irish silver carries a premium. It is the pieces made in small provincial centres that are most highly prized.

Some 150 lots of books formed part of a recent Irish auction held at Fortgranite, Baltinglass, in Co Wicklow, the home for over 200 years of the Dennis family.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

After almost 50 years on public display in the silver galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, a James I silver shell-form spice or sugar box was offered for sale at Salisbury saleroom Woolley & Wallis.

An early illustration by the ‘Glasgow Girl’ Jessie Marion King (1875-1949) emerged as one of the high points of a Decorative Arts: Design from 1860 sale at Edinburgh saleroom Lyon & Turnbull (25/20% buyer’s premium) on April 3.

Offered as a part of the natural history section of a May 14 book sale at Sotheby’s (25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) is an extremely rare photobook on New Zealand ferns by Herbert Boucher Dobbie issued c.1880 – no copy of which, it seems, has previously been seen at auction.

The inscription London on the barrels of this pair of 19th century, silver-mounted flintlock pistols is entirely spurious.

Modern British ceramics are rarely offered by German auction houses. Among the notable exceptions is the Kunst & Design Auktionshaus Schops Turowski, based in Krefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia.

A very rare panorama of London that made £90,000 in a recent West Sussex sale was the Pick of the week in ATG No 2387, but many other things among the 200 lots offered in that April 5 auction caught the eye.

As a rule, Lempertz (24/20% buyer’s premium) in Cologne always opens its spring season with a sale of moderately priced Old Master and 19th century paintings.

Underpinned by bids from the internet, silver from beyond the British Isles is these days a stronger feature of provincial sales.

A 1782 first of James Stewart’s 'Plocacosmos: or, the Whole Art of Hair Dressing' illustrated with 10 plates showing hairstyles was offered as part of a Forum Auctions sale.