Antiques

An important and extremely rare wucai fish bowl decorated with a bird theme ? mandarin ducks, geese, swallows and crested egrets in the rippling waters of a lake – is estimated to sell for £500,000 to £800,000 at Bonhams sale of Fine Chinese Art in London on November 7. The fish bowl [Read More]

Bonhams announce the sensational “white glove” results of the “Tacasyl Collection of Magnificent United States Proof Gold Coins” sold on September 23 in their Los Angeles salesroom. This collection of 27 lots represented a virtually complete collection of every major gold design type issued in proof in the US between 1836 and [Read More]

Exceptional gilt bronze figurative sculpture dominated Bonhams diverse offerings in the auction of Indian, Himalayan & Southeast Asian Art on September 18, claiming seven of the auction’s top ten spots. The majority of these highlights came directly from private collections and surpassed their pre-auction estimates substantially. Splendid examples from China, Nepal and [Read More]

The contents of ‘The Decorator Source’, the well known antique shop in the heart of the Cotswold town of Tetbury, will be sold in a single owner sale of antiques and decorative furniture at Bonhams Knightsbridge on 8th October. The sale will include over 500 lots made up of the contents of [Read More]

A fine and rare gilt bronze figure of Shadakshari Lokeshvara from the Yongle period has sold for $1,370,500 at Bonhams Chinese Art from the Scholar’s Studio auction, realizing more than six times its pre-auction estimate. The elegantly posed 15th century figure was produced by the imperial workshops, to be brought to Tibet [Read More]

A pair of 13th century Samurai swords by master maker Bizen Nagamitsu (or, “Nagamitsu from Bizen province,” active 1264-1287) is estimated to sell between $150,000-200,000 at Bonhams October 8 auction, Arts of the Samurai. The two swords, of different lengths, are a matched pair called a daisho, which means “large-small” in Japanese. [Read More]

Christie’s is to auction an exceptionally rare Arithmetical machine. This ‘pocket-sized’ calculator, measuring 14.5 centimeters in width and 32.5 centimeters in length, is one of the earliest mechanical calculating devices known to exist and is the first portable device; only three other known examples of this design have survived. The French instrument [Read More]

On Friday, September 6th and Saturday September 7th, Charlton Hall Galleries will feature numerous museum de-accessions at auction, including items from the Columbus Museum of Art in Columbus, Georgia. These numerous and notable items have been within the museum’s collection for as long as fifty years and are being de-accessioned to raise [Read More]

In its November 18 Antique Arms & Armor and Modern Sporting Guns Auction, Bonhams is pleased to offer a Smith & Wesson No. 2 revolver owned by Wild Bill Hickok that was on him when he was murdered by Jack McCall in Deadwood in 1876. Wild Bill Hickok (James Butler Hickok), 1837-1876, [Read More]

Bonhams is to offer the James A Rose collection of Netsuke and Sagemono on September 17 at the Madison Avenue salesroom. As one of America’s most dedicated and knowledgeable netsuke enthusiasts, James A Rose, MD (1931–2011) was a Member of the Board of Directors of the prominent International Netsuke Society and served [Read More]

Bonhams will auction an 1880 $4 Stella Coiled Hair Cameo coin, estimated to sell for between $1,000,000-1,500,000, in the September 23 Coins and Medals auction. The coin is one of many highlights from the Tacasyl Collection of Magnificent United States Proof Gold Coins on offer, a 27-strong selection assembled by a private [Read More]

An original 1931 poster for Frankenstein set a world record as the most valuable insert movie poster ever sold at auction when it realized $262,900 at Heritage Auctions July 27-28. The sale provided a monster payday for the collector who bought the 14 by 36 inch poster as a teenager for only [Read More]

Christies is to auction The Collection of Professor Sir Albert Richardson, P.R.A (1880-1964) – the celebrated collector, architect and President of the Royal Academy (1954-1956), in London on 18 and 19 September 2013. All great collections are exercises in creativity and self-expression, but rarely do they give such a vivid impression of [Read More]

Bonhams announce the sale of “The Tacasyl Collection of Magnificent United States Proof Gold Coins” on September 23 in Los Angeles. This collection of 27 lots represents a nearly complete collection of every major gold design type issued in Proof in the US between 1836 and 1915. Each lot in this collection [Read More]

A very fine and rare Imperial Chinese flambé-glazed bottle vase with an incised Qianlong seal mark of the period was sold today, 23 July, for £337,250 at Bonhams auction of the contents of Trelissick House, Cornwall. It had been estimated at £70,000-100,000. It was acquired by a collector in mainland China. Trelissick [Read More]

A previously unrecorded architectural table clock made circa 1665 by the famed horologist Samuel Knibb was sold at Bonhams’ Fine Clocks Sale, 9th July, for almost £1/2million. The auction attracted buyers from around the world with 80% of lots finding new homes. Standing crowds watched a lengthy rally between two bidders on [Read More]

Aleksei Mikhailovich Remizov’s “U Lisy Bal,” (“At the Fox’s Ball”) from 1939 sold for $62,500 at Bonhams June 26 auction of Russian Literature and Works on Paper. The exquisite calligraphic poem, written in Russian, French and German, was accompanied by four eccentric ink drawings. An avant-garde take on the fables of Reynard [Read More]

Throughout celebrated Venice Beach, Calif., based architect Frank O. Gehry’s career, the fish has been an important archetype that appears in both his architecture and design projects. Bonhams is proud to offer an example of a 1984 ‘Fish Lamp’ estimated at $70,000-90,000 in the October 7 auction of 20th Century Decorative Arts [Read More]