Top auction lots sold on the saleroom in 2023: Part I

George III table globes - £26,000

Pair of 3in table globes by John and William Cary, £26,000 at Dreweatts.

Three-inch globes were mostly sold to the well-to-do of Georgian society as pocket globes, typically as a terrestrial globe contained within a ray-skin case with the celestial gores for the heavens pasted inside.

However, occasionally they were offered as pairs in cases or with wooden stands as a pair of miniature table globes. It was one of the latter that sold to an internet bidder for £26,000 (estimate £2000-3000) as part of the clocks and scientific instruments sale at Dreweatts in Newbury on September 13.

Both terrestrial and the much rarer celestial globe had papers by John and William Cary of The Strands, dated 1791.

They were consigned for sale as part of a group of items once belonging to Bostonians Edith Wires (1872-1962) and her husband Harry Taft Hayward (1868- 1930), cousin of William Howard Taft, the 27th US President.

One of their daughters Mary Elizabeth Taft had married the Chilean born Henry Bernard Arthur de Bruyne and moved to Sussex shortly before the Second World War. Prized for their rarity as a pair, the globes, meridian rings and ebonised stands were also admired for the good original condition.

Gaudy Night in dust jacket - £2100

A signed copy of Gaudy Night by Dorothy Leigh Sayers, £2100 at Lodge Thomas.

Writing during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, Dorothy Leigh Sayers (1893-1957) was dubbed one of the four Queens of Crime alongside Agatha Christie. Margaret Allingham and Ngaio Marsh.

She is best known for a series of mystery novels that feature the aristocrat and amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey and the fictional detective novelist Harriet Vane, Gaudy Night is the tenth in the series.

George Orwell was not a fan. Writing his review in 1936 he said Sayers’ "slickness in writing has blinded many readers to the fact that her stories, considered as detective stories, are very bad ones.” Nonetheless the narrative that interweaves a love story with an examination of the stifled role of women in 1930s England, has since been described as ‘the first feminist mystery novel’.

Gaudy Night is a desirable first edition, particularly when offered with its ‘Just Out’ dust jacket in good order. Better still are copies signed by the author such as this one with an imperfect but intact jacket offered by Truro auctioneer Lodge Thomas on March 3.

Estimated modestly at £120-180, it took £2100 from a bidder using thesaleroom.com.

A letter from Abdul Rahman Ibrahima Sori - £7000

Nine lines of calligraphic script by Abdul Rahman Ibrahima Sori, £7000 at Mellors & Kirk.

This single page letter, offered for sale on January 19 by Mellors & Kirk, tells the remarkable story of Abdul Rahman Ibrahima Sori (1762-1829).

A prince and military commander born in Timbuktu, he was captured and sold into slavery in 1787. He endured almost 40 years of hard labour in Mississippi before he was finally gained his freedom in 1826.

Before he travelled back to Africa in 1828, Abdul Rahman was granted an audience with John Quincy Adams and raised $4000 during a 10-month tour of various northern cities to be used to free his family in Natchez.

He also sat for his portrait in New York, the artist Henry Inman (1801-46) painting him in the Moorish dress he often favoured in the hope of distinguishing himself from other black African slaves.

It was during the sitting that this note was written. The nine lines of calligraphic script in praise of Allah were penned by Abdul Rahman with Inman adding some commentary below. This was written in my presence, and at my request by Abduhl Rahhaman [sic] with a reed pen. The history of this man's recovery of freedom was the subject of much interest at the time. An engraving was made of his head from a painting in Water Colours by me, H Inman, N York, October 15th 1828.

According to an inscription verso it was later given by Inman to a friend R. Gilmor Esq in 1833 and it came for sale in Nottingham with a provenance to Dr Frank Lester Pleadwell (1872-1957), a physician and bibliophile. It was estimated at £300-500 but such an emotive example of black Americana brought £7000 from an online bidder using thesaleroom.com.

Zeigler turquoise ground carpet - £20,000

Ziegler turquoise ground carpet, £20,000 at Railtons.

When in 1883, Ziegler and Company of Manchester established a carpet factory in Sultanabad, it did so with a clear idea of its customer base. The firm used the best artisans from the region and natural dying techniques but also hired designers from department stores such as Altman & Co of New York and Liberty in London, to modify Eastern designs for the more restrained western taste.

In particular Ziegler carpets adopted a softer and lighter softer palette than their vibrant Persian counterparts. And what made them so desirable in the late 19th century is what makes them so coveted today.

A good example with an attractive and rare pale turquoise ground was offered by Railtons in Wooller, Northumberland on February 18.

Described simply as ‘a massive country house Turkey carpet woven with floral motifs on pale green field framed by orange border with floral medallions’ it was in relatively good order and an excellent size at 24ft x 17ft 7in (7.32 x 5.36m). It was estimated at £300-500, but sold to an online bidder at £20,000.

Portrait by Richard Wilson - £24,000

Portrait of Major Richard Callis, c. 1741 by Richard Wilson, £24,000 at Auctioneum.

Although much better known as a landscape painter working in Rome, Richard Wilson (1713-82) began his career as a portraitist in London.

This portrait of one Major Richard Callis was painted by Wilson in 1741, three years before he moved to Italy where he resolved to start anew in both subject matter and patronage.

Nothing is known of the sitter but he is dressed in the uniform of the First or King's Dragoon Guards, a regiment raised to deal with the insurrection of the Duke of Monmouth in 1685.

The painting has a provenance to Nellie Ionides (1882-1962), the connoisseur collector whose father Sir Marcus Samuel Viscount Bearsted foundered the Shell Transport and Trading Company.

It had hung at Ionides home, Buxted Park, Sussex, until 2004 when it acquired by the vendor at Chome Fine Art, Bath. Offered by Bristol auction house Auctioneum on November 17 with a modest guide of £2000-4000, it sold via thesaleroom.com at £24,000.