Auctions

In their auction of fine books & manuscripts lat Sunday, November 16, Skinners the Boston saleroom sold two Aubrey Beardsley illustrations. The first, The Climax (pictured right) fetched $213,300, well over its $15/20,000 estimate; the previous record for a Beardsley drawing was $159,600. A second Beardsley illustration – A Platonic Lament sold for $142,200, it had an estimate of $15/20,000.

The original pen and ink drawings were provided as illustrations for Oscar Wilde's controversial Salome: A Tragedy in One Act. After being exhibited in Europe they were sold in a sale at Anderson Galleries to an agent acting on behalf of a collector. Nine of the thirteen drawings were eventually donated to the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University. The two lots sold at the auction remained a mystery to Beardsley scholars and collectors for more than eighty years. The pictures were discovered in a Boston-area home hanging on a bathroom wall.

Beardsley died at the age of 25 of tuberculosis. Given that his career was cut so short, his works are very rare, but they are also very beautiful, making them all the more sought after by collectors.

This fascinating news of one of the most unusual pieces to come up for auction all year just arrived in my in box. It's a  complete vampire killing kit that was made around 1800 and comes complete with stakes, mirrors, a gun with silver bullets, crosses, a Bible, holy water, candles and even garlic, all housed in a American walnut case with a carved cross on top. It sold for $14,850 in the sale of the Jimmy Pippen estate  in  Natchez Mississippi.I cannot think of anything like it being sold that I've ever seen before.

Two fascinating lots are coming up for auction at Ewbank's the auction house at Send near Woking. They are two wellheads that originated in the old Palace of Westminster that date from before the fire in October 1834. This hexagonal carved stone well-head, carved in relief with alternating shields, of lion rampant and three lions passant, all topped with a crown, 34" diameter, 36" high, with later added cast iron frame, (total height, 91").  This would originally have formed part of the Gothic Revival work of Wyatt on the Houses of Parliament around 1805 and was probably removed following the fire of 1834 and the subsequent rebuilding by Sir Charles Barry. It is known that prominent political figures of the day including Sir Robert Peel were given statues and architectural fixtures.

The provenance is that it was removed from a private residence in Guildford, Surrey. The family remember this as having been in situ for very many years. The estimate is £ 3,000-5,000 and it, along with another similar piece comes up for sale on 18 December.

There's an interesting article in today's Financial Times about the declining value of antique furniture. On Thursday Christie’s will be disposing of the stock of two of London’s leading dealers in antique furniture. Hotspur, founded in 1924, and Jeremy, which date back to1946, are both ceasing to trade. The official reason  is that the current owners, sons of the founding fathers and close neighbours in Lowndes Street, Belgravia, at 70 have no obvious successors. As the FT says, "it is difficult to ignore the fact that both dealers are giving up after almost a decade of declining fortunes for dealers in traditional English furniture. It is blatantly out of fashion."

Mullocks the specialist auctioneers have a sale of fishing tackle on 22 November at 10.30 a.m. at Ludlow Racecourse in Shropshire. There are over 900 lots including a large number of fishing reels going back to the 19th century. There are a large number of Hardy reels, which are among the most collectable including this Silex Multiplier reel of 3.5" diameter, which has an estimate of  £800 to £1000. It's not the most expensive as a rare Allcock's Britannia Model 5197 trotting and spinning reel is expected to fetch over £2,000, which is at the very top end for reels