Auctions

A painting by Rex Whistler (1905-44) which was believed to be the last he painted before he was killed during the Second World War sold at Chiswick Auctions (25/12% buyer’s premium) in London.

The rising popularity of the tribal art collecting scene is tempting auction houses to take steps in that direction.

Second World War technology starred at Tennants’ (20% buyer’s premium) militaria sale at Leyburn.

Illustrated here are two of the 20 hand-coloured litho plates, many showing the Crystal Palace in the background and each with a rhyming couplet below, that make up Blondin’s Marvellous Feats.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Around 400 people and businesses are owed money by Australian auction house and gallery firm Mossgreen after it went into administration in December.

The inaugural Design at Home sale, put together by Mark Hill for Dawson’s (20% buyer’s premium) in Maidenhead, included a trio of pieces by ‘hot glass’ pioneer Sam Herman (b.1936).

Renowned as he is for promoting – indeed, creating – markets in art, advertising mogul Charles Saatchi appears to have over-estimated the taxidermy market when bidding at the sale of the Will Fisher Collection at Christie’s South Kensington in February 2012.

Two letters sent by passengers who lost their lives when the Titanic sank in 1912 came to auction in the latter part of 2017: one of them posted before she sailed, the other recovered, along with the owner’s pocket book, when his body was pulled from the freezing Atlantic waters.

Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and the Holy Places…, an elephant folio work of 1865 that sold for a treble-estimate £45,000 at Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium) on November 14, was a rare and complete proof copy of a monumental book of Palestinian views recognised as one of the scarcer colour-plate books on the Middle East.

Clocks from England’s ‘Golden Age’ provided highlights at two early December sales.