Guided at £8000- 10,000, this Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) plate made at Atelier Madeline- Jolly in Villefranchesur-Mer is part of the Design sale at Roseberys London on July 17.
L’Esprit Minéral, from an edition of 10, 1962, has been consigned from a private collection in London. Cocteau met Marie Madeline Jolly and Philippe Madeline in 1957 and began a process to transform his drawings into over 300 mesmerising ceramic works.
One of the eight bridesmaid’s dresses designed by Norman Hartnell for the Royal Wedding of 1947, estimated at £30,000-50,000 at Christie’s on July 2.
One of the eight bridesmaid’s dresses designed by Norman Hartnell for the Royal Wedding of 1947 will be among the highlights of The Exceptional Sale at Christie’s on July 2. It is estimated at £30,000-50,000. The dress was worn by Lady Elizabeth Longman, née Lambart (1924-2016), goddaughter to both Queen Mary and Princess Mary, The Princess Royal. She was a childhood friend to Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II).
A detail of the bridesmaid’s dress designed by Norman Hartnell offered at Christie’s.
The dresses, with their floral motifs, were designed to be symbolic of post-war British rebirth and growth. They were inspired by the fashions of high-Victorian Britain, the depictions of which Hartnell glimpsed in portraits by Winterhalter and Hayter while waiting for his first meeting to discuss the commission at Buckingham Palace.
This particular dress was on loan to The Fashion Museum in Bath from the 1980s to the early 2000s.
Grappe de raisins et ciseaux platter by Pablo Picasso, estimated £60,000-80,000 at Christie’s.
Christie’s annual sale of Picasso Ceramics runs online until July 1. The broad selection of pieces made at the Madoura pottery includes this unique platter from 1948, Grappe de raisins et ciseaux (estimate £60,000-80,000).
Gouache and ink sketch of swans in flight by Sir Peter Markham Scott, estimated at £300-500 at Cheffins.
The June 26-27 Fine Sale at Cheffins in Cambridge includes the remaining contents of the studio of conservationist, painter, and broadcaster Sir Peter Markham Scott (1909-89). The only son of Captain Scott of the Antarctic, Peter was brought up by his mother, Kathleen, a sculptor, and became interested in natural history, drawing, and painting at an early age. Throughout his life he drew or painted something almost every day.
The selection of lots at Cheffins includes paintings and drawings from all parts of his career: drawings he made as a teenager that were used to illustrate Adventures Among Birds by Three Schoolboys; approximately 100 pencil sketches demonstrating his skills as a portraitist and designs and hand-coloured lithographs for his influential A Coloured Key to the Wildfowl of the World first published in 1957.
This typical gouache and ink sketch of swans in flight signed and dated 1988 is estimated at £300-500.
18-bore Scottish flintlock belt pistol, offered together with an engraving of Lt Gen Richard Vyse, c.1800, with an estimate of £12,000-18,000 at Olympia Auctions.
This 18-bore Scottish flintlock belt pistol was owned by Richard Vyse (1746-1825) who began a long career in the army as a cornet in the 5th Dragoons in 1762 and ended it in 1805 as colonel of the 3rd Prince of Wales’s Dragoon Guards, Commander of Forces in Scotland.
He was member of parliament for Beverley from 1805-06, a member of the Highland Society and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1804. His gun, made entirely of steel, was not one he would have used in anger. Dated c.1700-10, it is almost certainly by Thomas Caddell 3rd, a gunsmith recorded in Doune c.1700-25. The inscription was added in the 19th century and would no doubt have appealed to Vyse’s antiquarian interests.
It will be sold together with an engraving of Lt Gen Richard Vyse, c.1800, with an estimate of £12,000-18,000 as part of Olympia’s Antique Arms, Armour and Militaria auction on June 26.
Carriage clock by Leroy & Fils of Paris and London, estimated £10,000-15,000 at Bellmans.
This carriage clock by Leroy & Fils of Paris and London is of the highest quality. Housed in a gilt and silvered bronze case cast to the four corners with figures emblematic of astronomy, horology, mathematics and mechanics, it features three subsidiary dials for the day of the week, the month and for the date and alarm set. The movement is a petite sonnerie repeater.
Another of the same design was made for the Great Exhibition in 1851.
This example has a guide of £10,000-15,000 at Bellmans’ sale of antique clocks in Billingshurst, West Sussex, on June 26.
Carved agate Antinous cameo, estimated £12,000-18,000 at Sotheby’s.
This carved agate cameo represents Antinous, the male lover of the Roman emperor Hadrian (76-138AD). Celebrated throughout history for his good looks, relatively little is known about Antinous’ life, other than his important place in Hadrian’s retinue and his tragic drowning in the Nile in mysterious circumstances.
This Renaissance era cameo, inspired by an antique bust portrait, was once part of the famed Arundel collection (it is listed in a Latin inventory of 1727 where it is rated extreme fine) and may previously have been among the gems he acquired from the Gonzagas Dukes of Mantua.
Last recorded for sale in 1921, until its recent rediscovery the only reliable image of the piece was an electrotype made in the 19th century.
It comes for sale at Sotheby’s July 3 sale titled Master Sculpture from Four Millennia with expectations of £12,000-18,000.
Neoclassical papier-mâché tea caddy, estimated £800-1200 at Woolley & Wallis.
This neoclassical papier-mâché tea caddy is very much in the style of Henry Clay of Birmingham and Covent Garden. He made a fortune through his 1772 patent for a ‘new improved paper-ware’ that involved pasting sheets of paper together and then oiling, varnishing and stove-hardening them.
Appointed ‘Japanner to His Majesty’, Clay also appears to have had a working relationship with both Josiah Wedgwood and Robert Adam. This caddy with an Etruscan style printed ground is one of a number recorded set with jasperware medallions bearing an image of a kneeling black slave beneath the legend Am I Not a Man and a Brother. These plaques were modelled by William Hackwood or Henry Webber, under the supervision of Josiah Wedgwood, for the Society of the Abolition of the Slave Trade and issued c.1787.
At the Furniture and Works of Art sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on July 3-4, it has an estimate of £800-1200.
Thomas Wesselmann poster for the 1972 Munich Olympics, estimated £180-360 at Antikbar.
For the 1972 Munich Olympics, various popular artists of the period were commissioned to design a series of posters for an advertising campaign which aimed to ‘represent the intertwining of sports and art worldwide’.
Pictured is the entry from the American Pop artist Thomas Wesselmann (1931- 2004) who supplied a bright illustration of a foot set over a green background. It is one of several posters from the series that carry guides of £180-360 each at London vintage poster specialist Antikbar on July 6.
Josiah Wedgwood copy of the Portland vase, estimated £4000-6000 at Dreweatts.
The celebrated Roman cameo glass vase known as the Portland or Barberini vase was lent to Josiah Wedgwood to study and ultimately copy in dry-bodied stoneware. After nearly five years of obsession and hundreds of experiments, he achieved his aim in 1790. His versions were so accurate, one was used to help piece back together the original vase when it smashed while on display at the British Museum.
Five examples of Wedgwood’s copy of the Portland vase come for sale at Dreweatts in Newbury on June 27 as part of the Stanley F Goldfein collection of ceramics. The example pictured here dated to c.1790 has an estimate of £4000-6000.
A member of The Wedgwood Society of New York, Goldfein collected 18th century British ceramics, both pottery and porcelain, with a particular fondness for Wedgwood.
The collection of 142 works from the US collector will be sold jointly by Dreweatts and Christie’s. It will be split between a live auction at the Newbury saleroom (127 lots offered without reserve) and 15 items with estimates of more than £10,000 each that will be sold in King Street sometime in the autumn.
Lithograph of an ant by Maurits Cornelis Escher, estimated £40,000-60,000 at Forum Auctions.
On July 3 Forum Auctions is offering a selection of works by Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972), which were bought directly from the artist in his studio in the Netherlands 70 years ago. The seven prints have remained with owner who was born in Amsterdam and lived close to Escher as a child in the late 1940s. He bought his first Escher works with pocket money.
His family recalls: “Our father was very drawn to Escher’s’ works; he particularly loved the mathematical aspect to them. He purchased 50 or more directly from him over the years. He met Escher through a school friend and would then often frequent his studio with his mother, to spend his saved-up pocket money on another of Escher’s works.”
Each of the works selected for this auction exemplifies the weird and wonderful world of MC Escher, from two-dimensional flatworms floating in a three-dimensional space and alien birds in an impossible moonscape, to an extraordinary hellish tessellation of bats and devils. The highlight of the sale is a 1943 lithograph of an ant, extant in only 20 impressions. Only the third copy seen on the open market in the past 25 years, it is guided at £40,000-60,000 in Forum’s Editions and Works on Paper 1500-2024 sale.
The Dairy Hands by William Gunning King, estimated £1500-2000 at Mallams.
The Art and Music Sale on July 10 at Mallams in Oxford includes a collection of 100 pictures consigned from a deceased estate in Oxfordshire. Among them is this oil on canvas by William Gunning King (1859-1940), The Dairy Hands, offered with an attractive guide price of £1500-2000.
According to J Bibby and Sons, a Liverpool firm which supplied animal feed to hundreds of British farms in the Edwardian era, “nobody had a better eye for a cow than the painter and illustrator William Gunning King”. Bibby’s became his most notable patron and over a period of 30 years, Gunning King painted approximately 300 pictures for them. They provide a valuable, if somewhat idealised, record of rural life in the first four decades of the 20th century.
Ormolu, marble and porcelain mantel timepiece, estimated £15,000-25,000 at Bonhams.
Representing a radical departure from previous English clock design when created in the 1780s, this ormolu, marble and porcelain mantel timepiece represented a collaboration between three key artisans of the Georgian era.
The Swiss émigré Justin Vulliamy (1712-97) introduced these clocks that combined biscuit figures from William Duesbury’s Derby Porcelain Factory and were modelled by the sculptor John Deare (1759-98). The collaboration began c.1782 with this example dated 1786.
It has an estimate of £15,000-25,000 as part of Bonhams’ Fine Clocks sale on July 3.
This painting of the Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist in an extensive landscape combines the talents of two celebrated Dutch artists. Much of the painting was done in the 16th century by Herri met de Bles, one of the earliest European practitioners of landscape painting. He was nicknamed ‘Little Owl’ for concealing an owl in his paintings as a signature (here seen sitting on a cage of one of the travellers).
However, the following century when the picture was owned by none other than Sir Peter Paul Rubens, the Baroque artist could not help but remodel and rework the figures to update and improve the composition. Rubens’ habit of adapting works by other masters is well known and visible today through X-ray and infrared technology.
This work, a recent rediscovery, comes for sale at Sotheby’s Old Master sale on July 3 with a guide of £600,000-800,000).
Nymphenburg portrait vase depicting Crown Princess Elisabeth of Prussia decorated aby court painter Christian Adler, c.1824, estimated £30,000-50,000 at Bonhams.
The 500 Years of European Ceramics sale on 4 July will feature more pieces from the Twinight Collection – dubbed ‘the world’s largest and most important collection of early 19th century porcelain and enamel miniatures’. Assembled over 25 years, this collection that once numbered 7000 pieces belongs to New York businessman, Richard Baron Cohen, a passionate buyer who estimated he bought 1.4 pieces of porcelain a day for 20 years.
Having already sold much of the British porcelain from Twinight in previous sales, Bonhams now offers European ceramics from the royal manufactories in Berlin, Vienna, and Sèvres. Leading the collection – and pictured here – is a documentary Nymphenburg portrait vase depicting Crown Princess Elisabeth of Prussia decorated aby court painter Christian Adler, c.1824 (estimate £30,000-50,000).
The July 9 Design sale at Sworders in Essex includes 106 lots from the estate of architect and interior designer Max Clendinning (1924-2020) and theatre designer Ralph Adron (1939-2023). The couple, who first met in 1960 when Clendinning was already an established name in British design and Adron a student at the Slade, shared extraordinary homes in Islington, London, and Umbria, Italy.
It is the remarkable mixture of furnishings from different eras – described by one newspaper reporter as ‘miximalism’ – that provides the collection with its ‘wow’.
Victorian design, Italian Modernism and the Memphis Group were a key source of inspiration. Completing the sale is a series of works designed by Clendinning himself: bespoke pieces created for his own home. These include a black lacquered cabinet with marble top that was specifically designed to accommodate a large Picasso stoneware landscape charger bought in 1976 from a shop on Chalk Farm Road. The Picasso dish is expected to bring £4000-6000 with the cabinet estimated at £800-1200.
Elizabethan silver-gilt tankard, London 1592, estimated £20,000-30,000 at Bonhams.
Bonhams’ Fine Decorative Arts sale on July 5 features this Elizabethan silver-gilt tankard, London 1592, with maker’s mark IB possibly for John Brodie. It is being sold by order of the Parochial Church Council of St Michaels Church, West Hill in the Diocese of Exeter and has never appeared on the open market before.
As cited in Greenaway, In Quiet Keeping: The Story of St Michael The Archangel, West Hill, it was given to the church on its consecration in 1846 by Lady Mary Coleridge (1788-1874),
The passage reads: “Lady Coleridge, wife of Sir John, gave the small tankard flagon marked IB, with rose in base, London 1592. The handle is scroll shaped with angel’s head as thumbpiece. Round the base of the lid and on top of the barrel is arabesque ornamentation; round the foot is a cable moulding; below this, egg and dart ornamentation with egg and tongue work at the base.”
A near identical silver-gilt tankard with the same maker’s mark, the same date and the same monogram was offered at Sotheby’s in 1973, as ‘The property of Trinity Church, Upper Dicker’ in East Sussex. It is highly likely they were once a pair. Bonhams’ example has an estimate of £20,000-30,000.
Sold nine years ago at Christie’s as a studio work, The Madonna of the Cherries returns to the auction house on July 2 as the primary version of this celebrated work by Quentin Metsys (1465/6-1530) with a guide £8m-12m.
The whereabouts of this picture, painted by Metsys in the 1520s, has been unknown since it was recorded in the collection of the wealthy Antwerp spice merchant Cornelis van der Geest (1577-1638), one of the foremost art collectors and connoisseurs of his age. In August 1615, when the rulers of the Spanish Netherlands, Archduke Albert VII of Austria and Archduchess Isabella Clara Eugenia, paid a visit to the collection, they had tried to buy the painting.
By the time the picture resurfaced in Paris at a sale in 1920 its composition had been altered (a curtain had been painted across the window and landscape) and it was no longer recognised as the work that had once belonged to van der Geest. When last offered for sale at Christie’s in 2015 as a studio variant deriving from Metsys’s original it took a premium-inclusive £254,500.
However, the subsequent cleaning and conservation told through ‘before and after’ images has been transformative, revealing the exceptional condition of the original paint surface and enabling scholars to recognise it as the prime version of one of the most celebrated paintings by the father of the Antwerp School.
Lord Astor on Shooting Stick with Horses by Sir Alfred Munnings, estimated £80,000-100,000 at Tennants.
The Sir Alfred Munnings oil sketch Lord Astor on Shooting Stick with Horses will be sold in Tennants’ British, European and Sporting Art sale in Leyburn, North Yorkshire, on July 13 with an estimate of £80,000-100,000. The painting is a sketch for A Summer Evening at Cliveden, Waldorf Astor, Second Viscount Astor (1879-1952), seated, which is held in the Cliveden estate collection in Buckinghamshire, now managed by the National Trust.
William Waldorf, 2nd Viscount Astor, was one of the greatest owner-breeders of his day and commissioned Munnings to paint several of his best horses in the paddocks at Cliveden or at Newmarket. The pair felt a deep kinship, both being at their happiest surrounded by horses. In his sketch, Astor and his trainer William Guy inspect a parade of mares and foals being led past on a sunlit evening, the pairs of horses identified as (from left to right): Light Sentence and Probation, Flash Point and On Fire, Quick Rise and Niblick, Point Duty and Road Patrol, and Instantaneous and Hasty Shot.
Aqua-Poesy III (V-7) vase (left) and a Aqua-Poesy beaker by Hiroshi Suzuki, estimated £10,000-15,000 and £2500-3000 respectively at Woolley & Wallis.
The swirling and fluted spot-hammered and chased forms created by the Anglo-Japanese silversmith Hiroshi Suzuki (b.1961) are represented in major collections and museums around the world.
These two pieces, a 47oz Aqua-Poesy III (V-7) vase and a 12oz Aqua-Poesy beaker, both hallmarked for London 2006 and the 999 standard, were acquired by a private collector from London jewellery dealership Hancocks. At the Silver sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on July 16, they carry estimates of £10,000-15,000 and £2500-3000 respectively.
Offered at Bishop & Miller: Royal Air Force platinum and diamond ‘sweetheart’ brooch (estimate £1000-1200); a diamond, cabochon ruby, enamel and platinum horse and jockey brooch (£1500-2000) and a late 19th century diamond and freshwater pearl caduceus brooch modelled as the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology (£1500-1700).
A Jewellery & Watches auction at Bishop & Miller in Glandford, Norfolk on July 24 includes this group of novelty brooches. They are (from left to right) a Royal Air Force platinum and diamond ‘sweetheart’ brooch (estimate £1000-1200); a diamond, cabochon ruby, enamel and platinum horse and jockey brooch (£1500-2000) and a late 19th century diamond and freshwater pearl caduceus brooch modelled as the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology (£1500-1700).
A view of Great Hayes in Surrey which has yielded items to Duke’s.
Duke’s of Dorchester has put together a strong sale of furniture from three fine houses in the Summer Auction of July 11.
Great Hayes in Surrey provides a selection of early 17th and 18th century solid oak furniture, including a 17th century oak court cupboard estimated at £500-1000 (as pictured here and in situ).
17th century oak court cupboard, estimated £500-1000 at Duke’s.
From The Old Rectory, Ickham near Canterbury, Kent, comes an eclectic mix of decorative furniture including a pair of Regency figured mahogany cabinets of Egyptian Revival design (£5000-8000).
The Old Vicarage at Chideock features good 18th century furniture, such as a set of eight George III style Hepplewhite dining chairs (£200-300).
The June 27 Fine Art, Antiques, Wine & Whisky auction at Dawsons in Maidenhead includes this original artwork by Sir Peter Blake (b.1932), The mixed-media collage of colour photocopies and printed lettering mounted on card titled Olongapo Rose and dated 1989 is estimated at £4000-6000.
This piece was commissioned by the vendor who directed the BBC documentary Olongapo Rose, the first episode in the series Under the Sun spotlighting people and cultures in a rapidly changing world.
In Olongapo City in the Philippines, 15,000 Filipinas girls work the strip, catering for the ‘rest and recreation’ needs of the US fleet. Rose is one of the bargirls who dream of marrying an American sailor – a dream that comes true for over 1000 Filipinas every year – but for many the lifestyle has disastrous consequences.
Bridget Riley Start screenprint, estimated £5000-7000 at Chiswick Auctions.
This Bridget Riley (b.1931) Op Art screenprint in colours, Start, from 2000, is number 113 from an edition of 200. It has a guide of £5000-7000 at Chiswick Auctions’ sale of Modern and Contemporary Prints and Multiples in west London on July 25.
Silver and enamel brooch by Toye & Co of London, estimated £1000-1500 at Woolley & Wallis.
Designed by Sylvia Pankhurst, this silver and enamel brooch by Toye & Co of London was awarded to Suffragettes who had been imprisoned for their protests in Holloway Prison. Presented to them on their release, the subversive design, based on the portcullis gate of the House of Commons, combined the broad arrow symbol of the prisoner’s uniforms with the Suffragette colours of purple, white and green.
The Holloway Prison brooches were described by the WSPU newspaper Votes for Women in April 1909 as “The Victoria Cross of the Union”. At the Jewellery sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on July 10, this rare survivor has an estimate of £1000-1500.
Ruth Sandys’ For the Zoo poster, featured at the Tomkinson Churcher / Lyon & Turnbull show.
In partnership with vintage poster specialist Tomkinson Churcher, Lyon & Turnbull is currently showing a private collection of London Zoo posters at its London office at 22 Connaught Street. The eight posters dating from the period 1913-33 are for sale by private treaty.
In its pre-war pomp, the tunnels of the London Underground became known as ‘the longest art gallery in the world’. Under the aegis of Frank Pick, who served as director of publicity from 1908-46, some of the most talented artists of the era were enlisted to create posters designed to catch the eye.
Exotic animals, Art Deco architecture and family-friendly appeal made the Regent’s Park Zoo an ideal subject and at least two lithographed posters were produced annually throughout the 1920s. Pictured here is Ruth Sandys’ For the Zoo featuring a sealion juggling a fish from 1925.
The collection, assembled over the past 15 years, will be on view until July 5.
Art Deco platinum, diamond and sapphire ring, c.1930, estimated £700-900 at Fellows.
Coming up in Fellows’ Fine Jewellery sale in Birmingham on July 24 is a ring from the collection of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Priced at £700-900, the Art Deco platinum, diamond and sapphire ring, c.1930, was originally sold as part of the sale Collectors’ Carousel – Property from the Collection of John Lennon and Yoko Ono at Sotheby’s New York in June 1984.
Writing at the time, Yoko Ono said: “These objects are things that John and I loved in different periods of our lives and are the only objects that will be released to the public other than that which would be kept by the family and would one day be in Lennon Museum for the public to share.”
