Auctions

The most historically interesting entry in Bonhams’ clock sale held in their New Bond Street rooms came from the ten-lot section devoted to marine chronometers.

Born near Loughborough into a family of tenant farmers, Robert Bakewell (1725-95) is recognised as an important figure in the Agricultural Revolution – a pioneer of the grassland irrigation he saw while travelling in Europe and an innovator in the selective breeding of livestock.

Among the most desirable of all needlework samplers are those associated with pupils at the Ackworth School, founded as a co-educational boarding school in 1779 by the Quaker physician John Fothergill and still thriving today.

Twenty lots comprising works by Anglo-Italian artist Fortunino Matania will be offered at the upcoming fine art sale being held by Tennants of Leyburn, North Yorkshire.

While two of the top prices of the London auctions last week came for ancient sculptures – the £14m Old Kingdom Egyptian limestone statue at Christie’s and the £8.3m for the Roman marble of Aphrodite (c.41-54AD) at Sotheby’s – there was also a bumper run of Old Master and British picture sales.

The first instalment of a single-owner collection of early leather vessels was dispersed in Christie’s South Kensington’s vernacular and country-style furnishing ‘Masters and Makers’ sale.

This 4500-year-old Egyptian painted limestone statue topped last week’s summer series of Old Masters and works of art sales in London.

Maori boat-shaped feather boxes – or ‘waka huia’ – are infrequent visitors to UK salerooms so it was unusual to see two examples sold in close proximity this summer.

Auction houses everywhere need to change the way they prepare for sales in order to meet increasing demands for detailed condition reports, say Australian auctioneers Mossgreen.

Here is a calendar with direct links to major upcoming art and antiques sales in London.

The big question at David Lay’s auctioneers in Penzance next week: Are these bonds worth a few hundred pounds or up to £3.6m each?

Sotheby’s have secured the single-owner collection of Rachel Lambert Mellon, valued at more than $100m, for sale later this year in New York.

The total from last week’s Contemporary art auctions in London may have been a far cry from the record New York series in May where $1.57bn (£975m) of art changed hands, but there was still plenty of action as the market continued on its current buoyant course.

An Arts & Crafts dining room suite made by the prominent Manchester designer Edgar Wood has sold for £42,000 at Gardiner Houlgate of Corsham near Bath.

Discovered at a regional valuation day held in Shropshire by Hansons of Etwall, this Tiffany and Co. silver and mixed-media tea caddy had been a wedding gift and had remained in the family of the vendor since the 1920s.

The story goes that Steiff black mohair bears were produced as mourning bears after the Titanic disaster in April 1912.

A strong selection of Tudric (pewter) and Cymric (silver) creations by Archibald Knox for Liberty & Co was the focus of keen bidding at Bonhams’ decorative arts from 1860 sale in New Bond Street.

Wilsons Auctions of Mallusk and Portadown in Northern Ireland have sold off more than 1000 pieces of sci-fi memorabilia seized by police from a woman who stole £2.3m from her employers.

One of Claude Monet’s paintings from his celebrated Water Lilies series led a slightly mixed round of Impressionist & Modern art auctions in London last week.

Auctioneer Richard Madley believes he may have set a record for the longest time ever taken to sell a single lot.