Auctions

The first stand-alone British and European sculpture sale to be held by Dreweatts (24% buyer’s premium) was a solid-enough affair to justify department head Cristian Beadman’s belief that there is an exploitable gap in the market.

Two depictions of the Madonna painted some 400 years apart were among the highlights of a dedicated sale of pictures at Dreweatts (24% buyer’s premium) in Donnington Priory in Berkshire.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period August 1-8 2018. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

It’s a rare sale these days at which an English furniture standard challenges quality Chinese pieces for price, but the top end of the trade certainly rated a 6ft 3in (1.9m) William and Mary walnut and featherbanded bureau cabinet offered by Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (21% buyer’s premium).

Preparatory and other unused drawings relating to Roald Dahl classics come to auction

A two-day sale devoted to works of American and international interest is scheduled for September 14-15 at Pook & Pook in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.

Just as fine English mahogany is selling below par, Chinese furniture, particularly in the desirable huanghuali hardwood, is booming.

A selection of fine or unusual bindings seen at auction during the summer months will feature more prominently in a future issue, but shown here is a 1751 first of Thomas Gray’s An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard in a striking later binding that was among lots offered at Chiswick Auctions (25/12% buyer’s premium) on July 12.

Part of the intake for a general sale, a terracotta sculpture by a protégé of Antonio Canova sold for £21,000 (plus premium) at Reeman Dansie in Colchester.

A small but enigmatic study attributed to Victorian artist Matthew Ridley Corbet (1850-1902) drew dramatic competition at John Nicholson’s in Fernhurst, Surrey.

It was not only in London that Eastern daggers made a big impression in UK auctions this summer.

On the day that the Bastille was stormed Louis XVI famously recorded “rien” (nothing) in his game book.

Two French corkscrews were the top lots of Henry Aldridge & Son’s auction of the first tranche of a single-owner collection of around 450 examples.