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  • Archive for July, 2019

    LEWIS CHESSMEN WARDER MAKES NEW WORLD RECORD

    Tuesday, July 2nd, 2019

    There was a new record for a medieval chess piece at auction today. A newly discovered warder attributed to the Lewis Chessmen workshop sold for £735,000 at Sotheby’s in London. The piece had been acquired for £5 in 1964 by an antiques dealer in Edinburgh and passed down in the same family by descent. It was stored away in his home before being inherited by his daughter, who believed it was special and perhaps imbued with some magical significance. The warder then passed onto the next generation of the family, who approached Sotheby’s to shed light on what was in fact an important historic artefact. Alexander Kader, Sotheby’s Co-Worldwide Head of European Sculpture & Works of Art, began a year-long study of the warder and deduced that the chessman could be one of the lost pieces of the Lewis group.

    The most famous chess pieces to have survived from the medieval world, the Lewis Chessmen were found in 1831 on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. The hoard comprised 93 objects, the majority carved from walrus ivory, which could make four complete sets of figure pieces, with the exception of one Knight and four Warders.

    Attributed to the Lewis Chessman Workshop
    Probably Norwegian, Trondheim, 13th Century

     

    THOMAS ROBERTS AT SOTHEBY’S OLD MASTER EVENING SALE

    Tuesday, July 2nd, 2019

    A painting by the Irish artist Thomas Roberts features at Sotheby’s evening sale of Old Masters in London on July 3. A Wooded landscape in Powerscourt Demesne with a brace of fallow bucks and a doe is estimated at £200,000-300,000. Robert Carver’s Wooded Landscape with classical ruins will feature at Sotheby’s Old Master Day sale on July 4.

    Thomas Roberts A WOODED LANDSCAPE IN POWERSCOURT DEMESNE, WITH A BRACE OF FALLOW BUCKS AND A DOE UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £447,000

    CARVED WINE COOLER AFTER DESIGN BY ROBERT ADAM

    Monday, July 1st, 2019

    This carved wine cooler c1772-74 after a design by Robert Adam and attributed to Sefferin Nelson comes up at The Exceptional Sale at Christie’s in London on July 4. It is among seven items from the 7th Earl of Harewoods Will Trust in the auction, being sold by order of the trustees and is estimated at £120,000-180,000.

    IRISH LOTS AT SOTHEBY’S ONLINE LITERATURE SALE

    Monday, July 1st, 2019

    A first edition of Gulliver’s Travels 1726-27 is among a number of Irish lots at Sotheby’s online sale of English Literature, Books, Childrens’ Books and Illustrations. The sale will include a 1654 Summary of Government Expenditure, Ireland, a copy of the Irish Proclamation estimated at £50,000-70,000 and lower half only copy of the Proclamation with an estimate of £8,000-12,000, paintings by Edyth Starkie, a pencil and watercolour caricature of George Moore by Max Beerbohm and various other lots. The sale opens for bidding today and runs until July 9.

    Gulliver’s Travels (£6,000-9,000).