UK

A 1765 first of John L Cowley’s The theory of perspective demonstrated… sold for £17,000 by Christie’s (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on July 12 appears to be the only first edition recorded at auction.

The button from the Lancaster bomber of 617 Squadron that released the ‘bouncing bomb’ which destroyed the Möhne Dam has sold after being offered at auction for the first time.

ATG’s weekly selection of items on sale at auctions and dealerships.

Sold for £400 on July 5 by Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium), as part of an online sale of cricket books, was one of just 50 specially bound copies of The Catch: A Correspondence by Harold Pinter and Alan Wilkinson.

An RAF logbook added value to a Second World War casualty group sold at Ipswich saleroom Lockdales (19.5% buyer’s premium) on July 15-16.

Operations behind enemy lines was the theme linking two special forces medals groups sold by London auction house Spink (20% buyer’s premium) on July 26.

A large oil painting offered at auction for first time depicts notorious figure from Charles II’s court and sells for five times top estimate.

Medals for service in the Falklands, Northern Ireland and long service/good conduct denote a busy 1980s career. In value terms, for a non-special forces unit, it means a price probably within £1000 at auction. But it is a single action lasting about 17 minutes from start to finish which explains why such a group on offer at Woolley & Wallis on November 22 is estimated at £20,000-30,000.

The highlight of Lyon & Turnbull’s sale of Scottish Silver & Applied Arts on August 16 was a Jacobite drinking glass with a difference.

Thomas Del Mar, former Sotheby’s specialist and founder of the 25 Blythe Road group of auctioneers, turns fair organiser next month. The first Olympia Arms Fair takes place on September 30.

A 19th century painting depicting the death of Horatio Nelson soared to £21,500 at Lawrences (22% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne on July 14.

MADAM – Regarding ATG’s coverage of the threat of closure to the Poole Pottery Studio (ATG No 2304 and antiquestradegazette.com), I feel it is imperative that some element of the production stays in Poole.

The popular annual Antiques in the Street event held in the market town of Ashbourne is being revived and will support restoration of an 18th century building.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period August 10-17, 2017. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.

The London Antique Arms Fair is usually a biannual event, but this year the organiser is rather busy – in November they are putting together the Passchendaele Salute 2017 at Fort Seclin near Lille, France.

Naïve-style paintings of livestock remain one of the liveliest sectors of the 19th century pictures market, judging by the response to several examples offered in Gloucestershire.

Chiswick Auctions is to open its South Kensington showroom manned by a group of former Christie’s staff early next month.

So enamoured was Deco dealer Bill Jones of Style 1900 with the biannual Art Deco fairs held in the Great Hall at Eltham Palace in south London that he started his own: in Norfolk and East Sussex.