Auctions

Although premises are closed, online selling can help to create a sale day sense of excitement

Despite the inevitable restrictions German auction houses are generally adapting well

The sale of portrait miniatures held online by Chiswick Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) included a watercolour on ivory of the artist William Holman Hunt (1827-1910).

Auction houses across the country are grappling with the practicalities of staging auctions safely as the UK enters its third week of the government-sanctioned shutdown.

There were two in the room when British Bespoke Auctions held a four-and-a half hour sale last week. On the rostrum on April 1, in an office rather than the saleroom (which is closed), was Nicholas Granger. Behind him was Bella, a blue-and-gold macaw who has been by his side for 20 years.

Although often overshadowed by her famous father William, May Morris (1862-1938) was herself an important figure in the British Arts & Crafts movement.

The recent auction held ‘live online’ by Aldridges of Bath included this spectacular hand-woven north Indian long shawl, or dochalla. It came with a colonial provenance.

Some keenly contested examples of Asian art featured in the large sale held by Schuler in Zurich on March 23-27.

Books, catalogues, ephemera, pictures and other material from the collections of the Shorthorn Society of the United Kingdom & Ireland formed a significant part of a recent Carlisle sale.

Tiffany and Lalique glassware from a private New York City collector provided some of the highlights in the Clarke Auction Gallery (25% buyer’s premium) online and phone bidding sale.

Maud O’Reilly (1886-1971), a key figure in Queensland’s Arts & Crafts movement and a student of the LJ Harvey school, showed her pottery at a number of British exhibitions in the mid 1920s.

Among a 200-lot list of vinyl records by a galaxy of rock and pop stars, punk provided the outstanding performance at Cottees’ (18% buyer’s premium) specialist sale at Poole.

Puritan Cotton Mather’s defence of executions is latest work on the subject to surface.

The first 20 lots of the recent football memorabilia sale at Stacey’s in Rayleigh, Essex came from the family of the Edwardian player Benjamin Warren (1879-1917).

An unusual late Victorian silver pocket watch by Herbert Blockley of London sold for an unexpected £2800 at Potteries Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) in Stoke-on- Trent.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from April 7-25, 2020.