Auctions

In the days when loved ones in the armed forces would head abroad on service for up to several years, not knowing when or if they would return, ‘sweetheart’ brooches were a way of remembering them.

Thomaston Place Auction Galleries of Maine is holding its annual summer sale, a three-day offering of more than 1500 lots covering a huge variety of different categories.

The British Museum’s big summer exhibition on Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai is over, but more art from the Land of the Rising Sun is in the offing (also see International Events, ATG No 2305).

A 1765 first of John L Cowley’s The theory of perspective demonstrated… sold for £17,000 by Christie’s (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on July 12 appears to be the only first edition recorded at auction.

A pair of white glazed figures of musicians made by the Lowestoft factory c.1770 sold for £4000 at the July 18 sale at Keys (plus 20% buyer’s premium) of Aylsham.

As well as the Richard Platt consignment, David Lay offered more than 100 lots of modern art by a local Cornish family.

The Doccia factory is perhaps best known for its hard-paste sculptures – many of them near-direct copies in porcelain of 17th and early 18th century bronzes. The key figure is the talented modeller Gaspero Bruschi, himself a Florentine sculptor.

Condensed into one day instead of the usual two, the Summer Sale at Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) nevertheless provided a bird’s eye view of the middle market which these triannual ‘fine’ auctions at Leyburn traditionally offer.

More than 100 Russian paintings consigned from a single source went under the hammer at Moore Allen & Innocent’s (18% buyer’s premium) July 7 sale in Cirencester.

Tim Goodman’s Fine Art Bourse (FAB) has fallen foul of Facebook’s nudity rules.