Auctions

Cleaned, restored and recently rebound in brown buckskin, together with a 1966 reprint, a rare 1495 Venetian first of Avicenna’s Metaphysica made €26,000 (£22,260) in a Reiss & Sohn (18% buyer’s premium) sale. The price was slightly under estimate but a record nonetheless.

On July 13 Boston saleroom Skinner will be offering the Victor & Muriel Polikoff Collection comprising nearly 300 lots of 18th and early 19th century ceramics.

Comprising what amounted to a crowded Regency household, fully and elegantly furnished and inhabited by half a dozen bisque or parian dolls, a c.1820 mahogany dolls’ cabinet was the outstanding offering from C&T Auctioneers (18% buyer’s premium) in Tunbridge Wells.

Led by the 17th century Goan hardwood, ivory and bone tabernacle which took a 100-times-estimate £36,000 from a European bidder (see Pick of the Week, ATG No 2294), a recent sale at Chiswick Auctions (22% buyer's premium) also included a tribute to a quintessential Victorian imperial hero – General Gordon.

The library of William O’Brien, an Irish-born QC and High Court judge in the Victorian era, sold for a premium-inclusive £2.8m at Sotheby’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on June 7.

Written by Judge Advocate David Collins, secretary, close friend and adviser to Governor Arthur Phillip, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales of 1798-1802 was the last of the so-called ‘First Fleet’ journals to be published.

A very rare ebonised sycamore and canvas side chair designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for Kate Cranston’s home sold for $470,000 (£362,000) at Sotheby’s New York last week.

The new president of The National Association of Valuers and Auctioneers (NAVA) has called for all auctioneers to be qualified and regulated.

Among the pieces of Fabergé bringing competition at last week’s Russian art sales in London was this c.1909-13 silver vodka cup offered at Sotheby’s.

Lots Road Auctions is to relocate to a purpose-built new saleroom as part of a property development on the Chelsea street.

Surrey auctioneers Ewbank’s is to sell the stock-in-trade of furniture restorers Arlington Conservation on June 23.