Auctions

MADAM – I read with interest your story about Evelyn Dunbar’s Joseph’s Dream, which set a world-record price for the artist of £73,500 (£60,000 hammer) at Cheffins on May 11 (ATG No 2292).

Such are the positive reports coming in from the provinces that one begins to fear what the finger-crossing superstitious call the curse of the commentator and the more rational know as the reversion to the mean.

Dreweatts has set a new auction record for the 20th century British sculptor John Skeaping (1901-80). At Donnington Priory on May 24, this 2ft (60cm) pink marble carving, Female nude, right, signed and dated 1928, sold to Cork Street dealership Browse & Darby for £90,000 (£111,600 including premium).

Two small private collections of glass, Art Nouveau and contemporary, were clear areas of interest at Cheffins’ (22.5% buyer’s premium) Art & Design from 1860 sale at Cambridge on May 11.

Seventy years ago, councils around the UK launched Pictures for Schools, a scheme to bring original works of art into the classroom.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period May 18-24, 2017. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

An age away from the controversy, skulduggery and sky-high prices that have too often characterised the antiquities market of late, the world of the quiet academic’s study came to the Macclesfield rooms of Adam Partridge (15% buyer’s premium) on April 6-7.

A gig poster advertising as the headline act ‘Britain’s Fabulous Disc Stars!’ sold for £28,000 at the Roger Jones (20% buyer’s premium inc VAT) May 23 auction.

Watercolours by the polar explorer Apsley Cherry-Garrard (1886-1959) were discovered among thousands of works from Stanley Studios in Chelsea.

Major dealers remain confident about the market for top-level English 18th century ceramics. At lower levels, however, the disappearance of so many dedicated collectors continues to take its toll.

“The good thing for Welsh art is the maturity of the tourist industry. It’s no longer, ‘if you want to go to Wales, you go to Butlin’s in Pwllheli’.” Ben Rogers Jones of Rogers Jones (20% buyer’s premium) puts much of the increased demand for Welsh art over the last 20 years down to that tourism trend.

One of the surprises at Peter Wilson’s April 26- 27 sale was a tinplate clockwork pram pushed by a woman stamped Burnett Limited, London, Made in England.

Included in Tajan’s design auction on June 1 is this striking 21st century low plexiglass table created by the Japanese architect Toyo Ito (b.1941).

Coming up trumps at Stamford auctioneers Batemans (20% buyer’s premium) on May 6 was a full pack of 52 Georgian playing cards.