Print Edition

A good-quality violin linked to the German maker Jacobus Stainer (1619-83) led a group of previously overlooked musical instruments in a Towcester auction.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Our weekly selection from salerooms.

Our weekly selection from salerooms.

In the first decades of the 19th century, watchmakers in many parts of Europe made a living by producing highly ornate watches and gold boxes, many of them for Chinese buyers.

During the late 18th century, schools of netsuke carving were established throughout Japan.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period November 6-13, 2019. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

On Friday, November 15, Michael Bloomstein of Brighton was paying the following for bulk scrap against a gold fix of: $1465.60 / €1328.93 / £1138.04

This oil below depicts the Victoria & Albert II, the largest royal yacht of the Victorian era which remained in service until the end of Queen Victoria’s life.

The British Museum has added this rare hand-coloured lithograph to its two-million-strong print collection after securing it at an auction in west London.

Sporting a distinctive hairstyle and beard that the cataloguer suggested “…would never again be replicated until early 21st-century Brooklyn”, the photograph below was part of a slavery and abolition-themed lot sold for $80,000 (£64,725) in an Americana sale held in New York by Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on September 25.

It is no coincidence that a glass bowl designed by Carl Witzmann (1883-1952), which was sold at Dr Fischer (28% buyer’s premium) in Heilbronn on October 19, reminded bidders of works by the great Austrian designer Josef Hoffmann. Witzmann was, after all, one of his pupils.

The talented Sèvres factory decorator Desire Leroy (1840-1908) came to the United Kingdom in 1878 to take up an appointment at Minton in Staffordshire. However, he is perhaps best known for his work at the Royal Crown Derby where he worked from 1890, aged 50, until his death in 1908.

A rare work by William Lambarde, the antiquarian, writer on legal subjects and author of the first county history, A Perambulation of Kent of 1576, was another highlight from the library of the late Eric Stanley, professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford (see reports in previous ATGs).

While the binding, with Charles Ricketts’ familiar gilt design on the front cover, is not in the best of conditions, an inscription on the half-title of this example of one of the 250 large paper copies of Oscar Wilde’s 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' published by Ward Lock in 1891 ensured that it set an auction record.

Whether we have Brexit or no Brexit, the European Union’s Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive will come into effect in the UK on January 10 next year.

An archive of material relating to Porthia Prints, a short-lived company that harnessed the talents of a host of St Ives artists, proved a sell-out success at Lyon & Turnbull’s Modern Made auction in Fitzrovia, London. The 24-lot section of original designs and textiles came for sale ‘from an important St Ives artist’s estate’.

Our weekly selection from salerooms.

The latest delay to Brexit was not a source of cheer for overseas vendors at the ABA’s Chelsea Rare Book Fair on November 1-2.

Most regionally made Georgian oak longcase clocks can now be bought for under £500 but this example is by a highly regarded and collectable maker: John Wolley or Woolley (c.1738-95) of Codnor, Derbyshire.