Latest News Articles by Ian McKay
Natural history collection includes hunting works
27 November 2017Natural history works, together with books, prints, even pictures featuring aspects of hunting, were a key component of a Sotheby’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale of November 2 billed only as The Library of a European Gentleman.
The fruit of mysterious labours
27 November 2017Originally published in parts in the years 1804-12, George Brookshaw’s Pomona Britannica contains 90 colour-printed and hand finished aquatint and stipple-engraved plates of fruits then cultivated in Britain (pineapple pictured below).
First edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone inscribed by JK Rowling sets £85,000 auction record
23 November 2017Probably best kept out of the hands of children unless, like the member of Bonhams' staff seen here, they are wearing white gloves, inscribed firsts of ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone’ are getting seriously expensive.
Distinguished musical group tunes up in London auction
20 November 2017Musical manuscripts, letters and photographs of composers offered at Sotheby’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on October 26 comprised the first part only of what was described as “a distinguished private collection” of books that is to be dispersed next year.
Lear sticks to landscape
20 November 2017A letter that Edward Lear wrote in 1881 to a friend to whom he intended to dispatch two drawings of Athens was among the more successful lots that Bloomsbury Auctions (24/18/12% buyer’s premium) sold on October 19.
Here be monsters… and an early view of Iceland
20 November 2017Featuring both real and mythical creatures, including a monstrous selection of denizens of the deep, this map of Iceland with its mountains, fjords, rivers, glaciers and a volcano is one of the more famous found in Ortelius’ Theatrum orbis terrarum.
Cocktail recipes go into the sale mix
20 November 2017It looks very tatty, but the dust jacket shown below is apparently a rare variant featuring a classic 1937 design by Alex Jardine for a 1927 first ‘Coronation’ edition of the Café Royal Cocktail Book.
The revolution may well be televised
13 November 2017A brief letter of 1864 in which Ulysses S Grant agrees to General William T Sherman’s ‘March to the Sea’, a bold plan to destroy Atlanta, then march across Georgia to Savannah or Charleston during the American Civil War, sold for $100,000 (£75,755) on October 19, at Heritage Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) in Dallas.
Holme truths about costly heraldic work
13 November 2017Earlier works in an October 18 sale held by Cheffins (22.5% buyer’s premium) included a scarce 1688 first of Randle Holme’s The Academy of Armory, or a Storehouse of Armory and Blazon, an heraldic work by the third member of a distinguished Chester family of heraldic painters and genealogists to bear that name. It made £1200.
BOOKS AND WORKS ON PAPER: A botanical collection grown over decades
13 November 2017A botanical collection formed over several decades by DF Allen of Washington DC and sold on October 26 by Sotheby’s New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) was small in numbers but focused on the exceptional.
The first map to name America – rediscovered copy of Martin Waldseemüller’s globe gores emerges at Christie’s auction
09 November 2017A previously unrecorded set of globe gores that name America for the first time will be offered at Christie's in London on December 9.
Long voyage ends in Edinburgh
06 November 2017Dated by the Edinburgh auctioneers to c.1815-17, a group of watercolours made on a voyage to the Middle and Far East was bid to a far higher than expected £13,000 in a 650-lot Lyon & Turnbull (25/20% buyer’s premium) sale of October 11.
Hobby-horses go helter-skelter with no brakes
06 November 2017Published by Ackermann in 1819 in its ‘Repository of the Arts’ journal, Four & Twenty Hobby-Horses All of a Row is an amusing coloured aquatint, accompanied by verses (by one L Harrison) that begin “Hobby’s the word, and onward sliding, All London Town is set a-riding:”.
Greek Herodotus, Italian treatise and Alpine peaks
06 November 2017The October 17 Swann Galleries (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale focused largely on early printed medical, scientific and travel books but also included, at $24,000 (£18,180), a first edition in Greek of the works of Herodotus.
For the armchair globetrotter
06 November 2017Dating from 1812, this pair of terrestrial and celestial library globes of 12in (31cm) diameter was made by the well-known London firm of John & William Cary.
Library touched by the hand of Dod
30 October 2017Edge Hall, near Malpas in Cheshire, has been a home to members of the Dod family since the reign of Henry II, but the library – sold by Forum Auctions (25/20% buyer’s premium) on October 12 – was formed in the 19th century and is typical of country house libraries.
Golf and cricket score at auction
30 October 2017Golf tournament programmes in Mullock’s (19% buyer’s premium) sale of golf and other sporting memorabilia of October 18-19 included the one shown here, issued for the 1933 Ryder Cup, played on the Southport and Ainsdale courses in 1937.
Shelley signature competes with rare sci-fi and fantasy
30 October 2017Science, fantasy and horror was the principal theme of a PBA Galleries (20/15% buyer’s premium) sale of October 5, though there were also books to appeal to broader literary tastes.
Actresses Hepburn and Leigh star in saleroom
30 October 2017Two sales that dispersed the personal effects of famous film stars, Audrey Hepburn and Vivien Leigh, marked the start of the new London auction season – and scripts, letters and books featured in both.
Handy guide to have in Catalan if you happen to be declaring independence
30 October 2017A good-conduct guide for princes and rulers that focuses on the government of self, the family and the civil authorities proved particularly topical at a New York auction on October 17.