May 7, 2019
A lot of people will have heard of the Bauhaus, but I suspect few will know what it was. As 2019 is its centenary, this is the perfect time to find out more.
In short, the Bauhaus was an art school in Weimar, Germany, founded by the modernist architect Walter Gropius. Although directed towards architecture, the philosophy that underpinned the Bauhaus was all about providing the complete package when it came to building, interior design and art. Look around you today and you will see its influence in everything from industrial design and graphic design to contemporary architecture and even typography.
The Bauhaus moved to Dessau in 1925 and then Berlin in 1932 before falling victim to Nazi disapproval just a year later; Hitler promoted classical architecture and despised what he saw as the communist ideals behind what the Bauhaus represented.
In 14 short years, the Bauhaus changed the way we looked at the world, sweeping away the staid conventions that had dominated the design of buildings, works of art and everyday items for centuries, just as the old order that had dominated Europe for centuries also faced its demise at the end of the Great War.
In many ways, the Bauhaus was very much of its time. Had it survived, it’s likely that its influence would have declined as its ideas diversified, diluting its original vision.
As an auctioneer, Bauhaus-influenced material turning up in the saleroom is almost always a boon, its force and beauty inevitably lead to furious bidding.
Apr 29, 2019
As Tiger Woods donned the green jacket at Augusta on April 14, the world choked back a tear. Not only was this one of the greatest sporting comebacks of all time, it was also redemption for a man who, admittedly partially through his own fault, had spent years plagued by his own set of personal demons.
Golfing memorabilia is among the most sought-after at auction, although prices have softened in recent years, rather reflecting the fortunes of Woods. With the return to form of golf’s greatest modern star, I can well see prices rising once more, as an increasing number of fans take an interest in clubs, balls and other ephemera.
With this in mind, keep an eye out for the price made by what is purported to be the oldest golf scorecard in the world, dating to December 2, 1820. As I write this, the May 1 sale still has to take place, but by the time you read it, the card, estimated at £2500-3500 for an Edinburgh auction, should have sold.
It records the shots played by a Mr Cundell over ten holes at Musselburgh, where his score was 84 – hardly magnificent, but, as we learn from his own commentary added to the card, he faced a “dreadful storm of wind and rain”. He made another impact on the game, however, publishing one of the first ever rule books on golf in 1824.
Apr 23, 2019
After decades in the business, it never ceases to amaze me how new developments can still amaze me! The latest to do so is artwork generated by artificial intelligence now selling at auction. It’s not often that I dwell on the philosophical, but I do wonder whether anything created by a computer programme, without the input of the spark of life and spiritual inspiration, can be classified as art. I’m not expecting an answer to that one in the next five minutes – after all, the human race has been creating art for at least tens of thousands of years and no one has yet been able to pin down a catch-all precise definition of what art actually is, and in many ways I hope they never do, because that would break art’s magic spell.
This calls to mind the late great Kenneth Clark, whose ground-breaking TV series Civilisation put the cultural cap on the 1960s, exactly 50 years ago (it ran from February to May 1969).
In his introduction to the first episode, entitled The Skin of our Teeth, Clark famously opined: “What is civilisation? I don’t know; I can’t define it in abstract terms, but I think I can recognise it when I see it.” Of all the emblems of civilisation across the world, what did he decide to use as his backdrop to illustrate this point? Notre Dame in Paris.
Apr 15, 2019
Whatever happened to Freddy the Fearless Fly? Or Dipper the Dodger? Or how about Podge, Jimmy and his Grockle, Marmaduke Mean the Miser or Flippy the Sea-Serpent?
All now lost in the mists of time, they enjoyed a brief ray of sunlight alongside the rather better known Korky the Cat a week ago when the first ever Dandy annual, from 1938, sold for a tidy £1250 at auction.
The Dandy Monster Comic, as it was then titled, was the first of more than 80 issues published over the years, with characters like the irrepressible Desperate Dan emerging along the way.
Always slightly in the shadow of its rival The Beano, a first (1940) edition of which made £2700 at auction last year, The Dandy was one of the all-time greats and, although still printed as an annual, no longer enjoys a weekly run, replaced some years ago now by an online version instead. Time moves on, I suppose, but it leaves me with a twinge of sadness.
If you really want to make money at auction from comics though, you need to look across the Pond. Superman’s first appearance in 1938 is the holy grail. On the cover and the last ten pages of Action Comics No 1, and now one of the rarest in the world, an example has already made $3.2 million at auction.
Apr 8, 2019
Look back 50 years and it’s a marvel to think that our parents’ and grandparents’ generations thought nothing of heading to their local auction rooms when furnishing their homes.
In those days, the local chattels auctioneer, livestock auctioneer and estate agent were often part of the same firm. It made sense; when someone died, it meant that their family could dispose of everything via a sort of one-stop shop rather than having to look around for several different firms to provide the service.
Furniture, silver, glass, ceramics and pictures from one home in the district would be recycled to others and so families built up their own collections of heirlooms and invested in chairs, tables, sofas and beds that would last a lifetime, before being handed on to someone else.
Tastes may have changed, but this tradition of making things last that predated the throwaway society we became is ripe for revival now we have become so concerned with the adverse effects of plastic and other disposable materials. It also explains why quality is as important from a practical point of view as it is from an appreciation of aesthetics. Well-made pieces built to last that are pleasing to the eye may not be the ideal for today’s manufacturer’s relying on repeat sales, but you’ll often find them at auction and they are keystones to a sustainable future, just as our parents and grandparents knew. Now it’s time for the next generation to find this out.
Apr 1, 2019
Occasionally someone brings an item in for valuation or sale that is so odd that it can be impossible to identify. This is either because it is so rare, no one has seen one before, or because its original purpose is now defunct.
I have seen two such items in the past week, one of which I actually handled, the other I saw in a news report. The first was a small, lozenge-shaped silver box with a finial of two birds. It was hollow and pierced to the sides and contained a stone, sealed within. The bottom of the box was ridged. What could it be? Fortunately, the owner knew. It transpired that the box once served two purposes: the first clue was in the ridged surface to the underside, which was used as an exfoliator by the ladies of the harem in the sultan’s palace; the clue to the second was the stone. As the ladies scrubbed, the stone rattled, acting as a warning to anyone about to enter that they were mid ablutions and so should not be disturbed.
The second item I saw was a real rarity: looking rather like a large metal seed, which just about fitted in the hand, it turned out to be an early form of grenade, used by crusaders, which was fund in the sea of Israel. I don’t expect to see another of those in my lifetime.
Mar 25, 2019
Estimated at £30-50, a severely damaged 1889 penny coin has just sold for nearly £5500 at auction. It was relatively rare because of its age, but not that special in terms of numismatics. No, what attracted bidders in their droves was the fact that the damage was caused by a bullet in the trenches during the First World War and its presence in the pocket of Private John Trickett had saved his life. This stroke of luck meant that, years later, his granddaughter was born and it was she who decided to put the coin up for sale – where her cousin successfully outbid others to keep it in the family.
This is a fine example of how it is so often the story associated with an item, rather than any intrinsic value, that makes it so sought after at auction.
Mistakes happen too, and while they can often be costly, they can also bring a great stroke of luck. One of my favourite stories involves a man who bought a painting in a thrift shop in Pennsylvania for $4 because he liked its frame. Removing the picture to inspect the frame more closely, he found that it concealed one of the original copies of the American Declaration of Independence, which went on to sell for $2.4 million at auction.
Mar 18, 2019
It’s been a remarkable couple of weeks in the auction world, and this period has reminded me of what a wonderful business we work in. Whether it is rock and pop memorabilia, fine art, photography or pretty much anything else really, something of interest has hit the headlines.
The first recording of David Bowie’s Starman, a reel-to-reel demo tape from 1971 packed away in a loft for decades, was expected to fetch £10,000 but sold for over £50,000. Peter Hook’s Joy Division collection made tens of thousands too, while the late pop star George Michael’s art collection was knocked down for £11.3 million. Meanwhile previously unseen photos of the Queen and Prince Philip relaxing on holiday in the 1940s and ’50s taken, it seems, by the author Daphne Du Maurier among others, have been consigned for an April sale.
But three auction stand out for me as the most unusual: the first involved a couple who thought they were bidding on a two-bedroom Glasgow flat but ended up buying a large derelict by mistake (this wouldn’t happen in a chattels auction); the astonishing price of $1.4 million paid for a racing pigeon and, my favourite, the food firm Heinz bought back a gold baked bean, created to mark the centenary of the popular foodstuff in 1995, for £750… also in Glasgow.
Mar 11, 2019
The last setting you would expect an auctioneer to take their life in their hands would be at a school’s charity fundraiser in a hotel ballroom, but that’s what happened when part of the ceiling collapsed at The Savoy on March 2. Fortunately, the only real damage was to the wonderful coving and a work of art created by the auctioneer, David Harper.
It was a lucky escape, but also a reminder of other close runs in the pursuit of our noble cause. I can think of a number of auctioneers who have found themselves holding live grenades after rummaging through a box of miscellaneous items consigned for the weekly general sale.
Certain types of auction can be more perilous than others; news in during the last week included the tale of several people hit by a car at an auto auction in the US. And spare a thought for the farmer crushed by a one-ton bull during a pedigree auction in Scotland recently.
As a whole, though, it is a comparatively safe enterprise when it comes to fine art, antiques and other chattels, I’m pleased to say. The biggest concern is usually how much damage someone may do to their wallet if they get a little too carried away when they see something they really love.
Mar 4, 2019
You may have read about what must be the attic find of the century in the news in the past week or so: the ‘Lost Caravaggio’.
Valued at up to £130 million, the painting – a rather lurid scene of the Biblical Judith beheading Holofernes – was discovered when a local auctioneer was called in to look at the rather dusty work after burglars had broken into a home in Toulouse and stolen a number of other items.
His inspection led to two years of research, including weeks in the laboratory of The Louvre, before the painting was unveiled as a national treasure in 2016.
As with works of this stature, however, expert opinion remains divided, with some arguing that the picture is the work of another artist or by one of Caravaggio’s students. Nonetheless, enough heavyweight opinion has swung behind the attribution for the auctioneer to proceed with confidence, and I’m delighted to say that it will be the original Toulouse auctioneer who will conduct the sale this summer.
How big a deal is this painting? Including this one, we now have 68 paintings attributed to Caravaggio, a baroque painter and one of the greatest Renaissance masters, who influenced later artists like Rembrandt, another giant of art, but considered a lesser talent than Caravaggio himself.
