Keys

Three more modestly valued works drawing attention at regional sales

More than 100 paintings owned by the Royal Society of Marine Artists were dispersed in a Norfolk auction.

Michael Rothenstein’s illustration of Lennie Small and George Millon, the Californian migrant workers whose story is told in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, formed both the jacket illustration and the frontispiece (shown below) to the 1927, first UK edition.

More than 100 paintings owned by the Royal Society of Marine Artists are to be sold at auction in Norfolk.

Lucie Rowe, who started her career with Cirencester auction house Moore Allen & Innocent 15 years ago as a part-time saleday porter, has been promoted to her first management position: assistant saleroom manager.

Pictures, prints and taxidermic displays accounted for the larger part of the Ornithology Sale held by Keys (17.5% buyer’s premium) on September 22, but it also offered some 175 book lots, many of them multiples.

Keys is holding two specialist sales next year to whet the appetite. Not only does the Norfolk auction house have a shipshape selection dedicated to ‘local hero’ Nelson, but it has also secured the diploma collection of the Royal Society of Marine Artists (RSMA), Tom Derbyshire writes.

It was a busy summer for Keys (20% buyer’s premium), who had book sales in both July and August.

Sold for £420 in an August 24-25 sale held by Keys (17.5% buyer’s premium) was a 1939 first of Maurice Gorham’s 'The Local', with its 15 coloured litho illustrations by Edward Ardizzone.

A pair of white glazed figures of musicians made by the Lowestoft factory c.1770 sold for £4000 at the July 18 sale at Keys (plus 20% buyer’s premium) of Aylsham.

Following a near sell-out auction of Lowestoft in March at Keys of Aylsham, another tranche is poised to go under the saleroom’s hammer.

Agatha Christie’s books were much in evidence at a Keys (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale of June 7-8, among them a 1921 first of The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

What Aylsham auction house Keys (20% buyer’s premium) considered one of the largest private collections of Lowestoft ever to come to market was a near sell-out on March 21.

Offered by Keys (20% buyer’s premium) on April 6, the Sir Malcolm Arnold Collection proved to be a problematic one.