Auctioneers

C&T Auctioneers’ (20% buyer’s premium) November 6 sale titled After the Great War Centenary also marked the final slice of a three-part offering of what specialist Matthew Tredwen called “one of the finest collections of First World War German militaria to have been sold at auction in the UK”.

A large and handsome souvenir publication for the French liner SS Normandie was offered in a Mullock’s (20% buyer’s premium) sale of October 16.

This classic First World war recruitment poster with the Old Lion of Britain calling on the Young Lions to answer the call to fight is estimated at £200-400 in Onslows’ poster auction on December 14.

A popular form of gift or memento to loved ones as troops left for the front was a ‘sweetheart brooch’.

Two copies of Time Out of Joint, an early dystopian work by the well-known sci-fi writer Philip K Dick, were offered in a PBA Galleries (20/15% buyer’s premium) sale of October 18.

The London watchmaker John Ilbery, active from 1780-1839, is credited with the invention of the ‘montre chinoise’, highly ornate goldenamel watches made for the Chinese market.

The sales of Asian art at Lempertz in Cologne traditionally devote a large selection to Japanese works of art and the auction on December 7-8 is no exception.

The Hundred Days Offensive broke the back of German resistance in 1918 and by November the Allies were surging well beyond the once static Western Front.

British Empire soldiers included more than a million Indian Army troops serving overseas.

Including, as it did, pieces from Alnwick Castle, an ‘attic sale’ based on the Duke of Northumberland’s home was guaranteed to generate more interest than many similarly titled auctions.

The camel looks terribly pleased with its hat and collar in this plate from a copy of Emily Eden’s 'Portraits of the Princes and People of India' sold on October 23 as part of an Indian & Islamic Art sale.

Such was the scale of the Great War that the Cameronians regiment alone raised 27 battalions from 1914-18.

Dated October 29, 1862, a letter that may very well have been Abraham Lincoln’s last to his over-cautious army chief, General George McClellan, provided a highlight of a recent Dallas sale of historical manuscripts.

As soon as the devastating power of machine guns in the First World War became clear, the British Army abandoned its earlier policy of attaching a section of just two guns to each infantry battalion or cavalry regiment.

Two of the outstanding surprises from the specialist 478-lot Islamic & Indian Art sale at Roseberys (23% buyer’s premium) in West Norwood on October 22 are illustrated here.

It was a British engineer, Robert Whitehead (1823-1905) – working in Austria at the instigation of the Austrian Navy – who developed the first self-propelled torpedo in the 1850s.

A classic souvenir for Grand Tourists across the years, this pair of 19th century models of the temples of Vespasian and Castor and Pollux below was one of the stand-out lots at the Wallis & Wallis (20% buyer’s premium) four-day sale at Lewes.

Spotlight on art offered at Bishton Hall on-site auction underlines appeal of a grand home.

A number of works designed by some of the biggest names in the Wiener Werkstatte association are to be offered in the Jugendstil auction at Dorotheum on December 12. Among them are two brooches designed by Josef Hoffmann.

The centenary of the Armistice has been marked by the appearance of some poignant lots at auction revealing the human cost.