Auctions

By 1677, the great English clockmaker Thomas Tompion (1639-1713) was subletting part of his famous London premises – The Dial and Three Crowns at Water Lane – to one Jasper Braem or Bream (fl.1677-96).

Bid to a record €18,000 (£15,660) in a May 15-17 series of sales held by Reiss & Sohn (18% buyer’s pemium) of Königstein, near Frankfurt, was a first edition of Immanuel Kant’s 'Critik der reinen Vernunft'.

Ken Hose, who has published three books on Australian clockmakers, has been fascinated by clocks and their mechanics since he was a teenager.

Three modestly valued works in regional sales including a work by Moira Beaty.

Hard-paste figures of Russian ethnic characters and workers have appeared at English auctions on a number of occasions in recent years (ATGs passim), generally to keen interest from the Motherland and eastern Europe.

A beautifully preserved 1937 first state copy of Tolkien’s 'The Hobbit' sold for £35,000 at Forum Auctions.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period May 31-June 6, 2018. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

John Magnier, the Irish horse breeder and art collector, reportedly made a five-fold return on his Amadeo Modigliani reclining nude when it sold at Sotheby’s New York last month for $139m (£102.2m).

Shown below is one of 20 hand-coloured plates from 'Masken des Römischen Carnevals'. This was a rare and separate 1790 Weimar issue of the plates that illustrated a work by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on Roman carnivals published the previous year – an item that is itself a great rarity*.

The Wassenaar Zoo in Den Haag opened its doors in 1937 and closed in 1985, but its wonderful library, essentially untouched since the 1970s, has only now come to auction in London.