Auctions

A philosopher of mathematics, the human consciousness and language, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was described by his teacher Bertrand Russell as “the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived”.

The sluggish area of Victorian genre painting provided Brightwells (20% buyer’s premium) with one of its top-sellers at the November 8-9 sale in Leominster.

An Old Master portrait of an elderly Stuart woman took £13,200 at Mander Auctioneers (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Suffolk on November 18.

For a relatively brief period during the 19th century, small silver boxes decorated with British landmarks found an eager following among the honeymooners and day-trippers of Georgian and Victorian England.

George Orwell is the focus of a first look at a November 7 Sotheby’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale of books from The Library of an English Bibliophile, the seventh in that series to have been held since 2010. Orwell’s books made a significant contribution to the overall total.

A William Nicholson (1872-1949) portrait drew admirers at Thomas R Callan (17.5% buyer’s premium) on November 19 as it was hammered down for £150,000.

Lee Young, Asian art specialist and international director at Lyon & Turnbull, is joining Duke’s of Dorchester in December. He will assume the role of managing director.

A mix of surprising and more predictable results emerged in the first round of Old Master auctions in Germany and Austria this autumn.

In September, eight works by two of Singapore’s most celebrated 20th century artists sold for multi-estimate sums at Andrew Smith & Son (20% buyer’s premium).

It was in poor condition and lacked the backstrip, but a copy of The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-winkle offered in the book section of a Greenslade Taylor Hunt (19.5% buyer’s premium) sale of November 2 was redeemed by the presence of a presentation inscription.

Among the many hundreds of services manufactured in Meissen, the Schwanenservice (Swan Service) is one of the most exclusive – a fact not lost on today’s collectors of 18th century German porcelain.

This painting of a flower market in Paris (below) by the Australian artist Ethel Carrick-Fox (1872-1952) took top honours at The Cotswold Auction Company (20% buyer’s premium) in Cheltenham on November 14.