Shortly after Napoleon Bonaparte died in 1821 on the remote island of St Helena in the south Atlantic, his physician, Dr Francois Carlo Antommarchi, made a death mask.
On Antommarchi’s return to Europe, the plaster cast was reproduced in bronze and other materials. This electro-type copy was once the property of Alexander Meyrick Broadley (1847-1916), a noted collector of Napoleana. Following Broadley’s death, it was sold to Lord Curzon, who in turn bequeathed it in 1926 to the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
The piece has been consigned by television antiques expert Tim Wonnacott to Sworders’ Out of the Ordinary auction in Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex, on February 12.
Estimate £800-1200.
Lily Cottage, Lamorna – a 12½ x 15in (32 x 38cm) oil on board by Samuel John ‘Lamorna’ Birch (1869-1955) – depicts the home of painter Stanley Gardiner (1888-1952).
Gardiner spent the last 30 years of his life living and working in the Lamorna valley in west Cornwall. He was encouraged and heavily influenced by Birch, for whom he made frames when finances were tight.
The painting is offered for sale at David Lay of Penzance on January 31 with hopes of £1000-2000.
This small ancient Egyptian pottery vase, c.3400-3300 BC, is made from Nile silt clay and decorated with oared ships, plant motifs, water and a shrine.
It forms part of a collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities assembled by collector Julian Bird which will be offered in a single-owner sale at Derbyshire saleroom Hansons. The auction takes place in Teddington, south-west London, on February 11.
Bird purchased his collection from galleries and auction houses between the 1970s and 2013, with most pieces accompanied by invoices and written provenance.
Estimate £400-800.
hansonsauctioneers.co.uk or see this item on thesaleroom.com
This bucolic etching of Romney Marsh by war artist CRW Nevinson (1889-1946) was first exhibited at the Leicester Galleries in 1923.
The etching – believed to date to 1918 – was shown alongside other works on a pastoral theme and is among Nevinson’s first attempts at pure landscape etchings.
It raised eyebrows at the time, with one critic, Paul Konody, remarking that such works would come as a surprise to those who assumed Nevinson was incapable of “appreciating the charm of rural life”.
The 15 x 22in (38 x 56cm) etching on wove, made in an edition of 25, is guided at £600-800 in The Art & Design Sale at Cheffins of Cambridge on February 7.
cheffins.co.uk or see this item on thesaleroom.com
