Auctions

Fine or unusual bindings, ranging in date from the 15th century to very recent times indeed, are illustrated and briefly described here – all of them drawn from mid-summer UK auctions.

A selection of three works from UK regional salerooms sold for £1000 or under.

Topping two days of steady selling and 750 wide-ranging lots at Leominster saleroom Brightwells’ (17.5% buyer’s premium) summer auction was a Republic period cong-form vase in the style of the renowned Qianjiang School artist Wang Yeting.

Unseen on the market since 1946, a view of Sloane Square (below) by Robert Buhler (1916-89) raced to £5000 at Ewbank’s (22.5% buyer’s premium).

An intriguing portrait by an unidentified hand of a Royal Navy admiral in a wig and blue gilt braided uniform was a star entry at Cotswold saleroom Chorley’s (20/15/12.5/10% buyer’s premium).

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period August 16-22, 2018. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

Dealer events have traditionally dominated the early September calendar in Paris but auction houses are catching up.

Briefly noted in ATG No 2353 was a copy of Through the Looking Glass sold for £30,000 at Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9%) on July 10, where it was part of the eighth and latest sale of books from ‘The Library of an English Bibliophile’.

Selling above estimate at Jacobs & Hunt (22% buyer’s premium) in Liss, Hampshire, was a life-size bronze by Sydney Harpley (1927-92) titled Umbrella Girl, below.

A simple image titled 'Pony' by British artist Patrick Caulfield is the highest-estimated lot ever to be offered at south London saleroom Roseberys.

This watercolour, below, by Frederic Whiting (1874-1962) took a multi-estimate £2500 at Thomson Roddick’s (15% buyer’s premium) Edinburgh saleroom on August 9.

Outselling the usual favourite Bond movie posters, a British Quad for Get Carter starring Michael Caine topped the 69-lot specialist sale of movie posters at Ewbank’s (22.5% buyer’s premium).

For a Communist tyrant, Joseph Stalin remains remarkably popular in the capitalist world of UK auctions – the latest evidence provided by a rare cast bronze death mask offered at Canterbury Auction Galleries (24% buyer’s premium).

This Old Master painting, above, of The Adoration of the Magi in the manner of Italian painter Vincenzo Carducci (c.1576-1638) led a recent Dorset sale.