A host of leading photographers and private collectors donated works to the Photographs sale at Bonhams that took place on the 17th May, raising £33,687 for the leading children’s charity the NSPCC.
Highlights included a striking image of Kate Moss which was donated by the photographer Sølve Sundsbø and the model herself that sold for £5,250, a playful shot of Brigitte Bardot and Sean Connery on the set of 1968 Western Shalako by Terry O’Neill sold for £3,096 and a portrait of Twiggy by Barry Lategan that sold for £6,825.
Top lots of the sale included a photograph by Peter Beard entitled Giraffes on Mirage on the Taru Desert, Kenya c. 1960 that sold for £25,000. Exceeding the presale estimate of £8,000 ? 12,000, the photograph was given by the photographer to the seller. Also exceeding a presale estimate of £8,000 ? 12,000, a portrait of Detátch Alámáyou and Basha Félika (King Theodore’s son and Captain Speedy), 1868 by Julia Margaret Cameron sold for £22,500. A 1965 portrait of the renowned Kray Brothers, by the celebrated British photographer David Bailey sold for £21,250.
Further highlights included the only daguerreotype portrait known to exist of Catherine, the wife of Charles Dickens that sold for £8,750. The portrait first came to light in 1996, discovered in an antique camera shop in Canterbury. Initially believed to be an image of Charles Dickens’s sister, leading scholars soon identified the sitter as the writer’s wife, Catherine (née Hogarth). A c-type print by Idris Khan entitled Every..Bernd and Hilla Becher spherical gasholders sold for £13,125, selling for over double the presale estimate of £4,000 ? 6,000.
