Auctions

Handsomely bound, a set of Gould’s Birds of Britain offered as part of the small but select Dorros ornithological library at Christie’s New York sale of June 15 failed against a $60,000-80,000 estimate, but in a Dominic Winter (19.5% buyer’s premium) sale of the previous day a very differently presented set brought a mid-estimate £36,000.

The pick of a good selection of military muskets and rifles in Anthony Cribb’s (20% buyer’s premium) sale in Abingdon on June 27 was a relatively rare example of the Baker rifle issued to British rifle regiments from the beginning of the 19th century until the 1830s.

Austrian artists figured prominently at the June 20-21 sale at Kinsky (26% buyer’s premium) in Vienna.

Bid to £5000 at Bonhams (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on June 14 was a 1593 first of Thomas Fale’s 'Horolographia. The Art of Dialling'.

The biggest sensation at Scheublein (26% buyer’s premium) in Munich on June 30 was caused by an oil painting of American Indians from the mid-19th century. It was an oil study for a famous painting by Carl Ferdinand Wimar (1828-62), who also went by the name of Charles Wimar.

Leading a 75-lot Brontë collection sold by Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on July 10* was a set of two of the novels written by the sisters in the hugely productive years of 1846-47.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period July 13-19, 2017. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

The collection of Clarice Cliff formed by André Aerne, a voice professor at Butler University in the US who died last year, will be offered in an online sale at Christie’s this month.

Works by the Pre-Raphaelites and their followers continued to outperform the rest of the Victorian art market during the latest round of sales in London.

Like many modern artists, John Bellany’s (1942-2013) canvases reflect his personal story – and his was a turbulent one.

For many years auctioneers have been itching to move the finest arms and armour from the province of the specialist collector and establish them with a wider audience as works of art in their own right.

It has been 50 years since Sotheby’s first held its annual August sporting guns sales at the prestigious Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire.

More 19th century art was offered in London when over 120 lots of European and Orientalist pictures went under the hammer at Christie’s.

Sold for €62,500 (£54,825) by German auction house Kiefer (20% buyer’s premium) in a June 30-July 1 sale in Pforzheim was an 1867, Hamburg first edition of the first volume of Karl Marx’s 'Das Kapital'.